Brahms: Serenade No. 2 in A major, Op. 16 (with Score)

Johannes Brahms:
Serenade No. 2 in A major, Op. 16 (with Score)
Composed: 1858–59, revised 1875
Conductor: Bernard Haitink
Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra

00:00 1. Allegro moderato (A major)
08:16 2. Scherzo: Vivace (C major) — Trio (F major)
11:04 3. Adagio non troppo (A minor)
18:23 4. Quasi Menuetto (D major) — Trio (F-sharp minor)
23:41 5. Rondo: Allegro (A major)

Johannes Brahms was somewhat less naturally inclined towards orchestral music than he was towards other varieties of instrumental composition; whereas he seems to have been born with a feel for chamber and piano shapes and textures, we find that he felt compelled to test the orchestral waters a little bit at a time and avoid -- avoid for a very long time indeed, as any who knows the history of his First Symphony can attest -- plunging headlong into a full-scale symphonic challenge. When Brahms accepted the post of choral director at the court of Lippe-Detmold in the late 1850s, he found that, for the first time in his life, he had access to an orchestra. He put that access to good use, composing two orchestral serenades and continuing work on the piano concerto he had begun in 1854. With the completion of the Serenade No. 2 in A major, Op. 16, in 1859, Brahms counted this first period of development as an orchestral composer as finished. Except for the occasional bit of work on the not-soon-to-be-completed Symphony No. 1, he didn't write another note for orchestra until the Haydn Variations of 1873.

Brahms revised the Serenade No. 2 twice. In 1860, he rescored the work for a small orchestra without violins, and in 1875 he tinkered with some of the superficial markings. The final scoring is more "serenade-like" than that of the Serenade No. 1, with winds and low strings. This lends the work a certain mellow quality and creates an outdoor-evocative, wind-band sound. The work is built around the traditional (or, as Brahms' critics would have it, outdated) multi-movement suite model. The five movements are: 1. Allegro moderato, 2. Scherzo, 3. Adagio non troppo, 4. Quasi menuetto, 5. Rondo. The first movement opens with one of the most relaxed and effortless-sounding woodwind tunes one will ever hear, and continues in that easy-going vein -- only during the development section does Brahms brew any real anxiety, and only in that same section do the strings assert themselves. The Scherzo is an energetic Vivace, the Adagio non troppo a rich and serious essay; and the quasi-minuet movement is absolutely undanceable and peculiarly stoic. By comparison, the Rondo finale (Allegro) is joyous and sunny, and very near at times to a rollicking peasant dance. (https://www.allmusic.com/composition/...)