Serenade No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11
Serenade No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11, orchestral work by German composer Johannes Brahms, known for its unusually symphonic quality and for the prominence of its horn section. The final version of the work premiered in Hannover, Germany, on March 3, 1860, and was published that same year, making it Brahms’s first orchestral work to appear in print.
Brahms’s serenade was sketched in Detmold, Germany, in 1857–58, when the composer was wintering there as a part-time music teacher in the court of Prince Paul Friedrich Emil Leopold. Then in his mid-20s, Brahms adopted a neoclassical style that was variously reminiscent of the earlier small-orchestra and ensemble works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and others, but he did not set aside his own Romantic sensibilities. The piece has six movements. The jubilant sonata-form first movement, with its distinctive drones, is followed by a rather sombre scherzo. Songlike flute melodies lend an idyllic quality to the third movement, “Adagio non troppo,” and a pair of straightforward, alternately wind- and string-dominated minuets form the third and fourth movements. The penultimate movement is a stately scherzo featuring particularly prominent horn parts, and the piece concludes with a galloping rondo played by the full orchestra.
Originally, the composition was modestly scored for nine wind and string players, but the composer’s friends—notably pianist Clara Schumann and violinist Joseph Joachim—encouraged him to rework the piece for a larger ensemble. Joachim conducted the premiere of the revised, final version, which included brass, timpani, and a larger contingent of woodwinds. Schumann, in turn, ensured the piece’s premiere in Vienna by making its presence on the program a condition of her own concert appearance with the Vienna Philharmonic.