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SERENADE (from Ital. serenata, Lat. s...

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 663 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SERENADE (from Ital. serenata, See also:Lat. See also:serenus, See also:bright; the See also:Italian See also:term being applied, partly by confusion with serus, See also:late, and partly through the use of See also:Serena—cf. Gr. ve?i7vri—as an epithet for the See also:moon, to a See also:form of courting See also:music played at See also:night in the open See also:air; whence also the synonym Notturno), in music; a term classically applied to a See also:light See also:kind of See also:symphony, more rarely a piece of chamber music, in a light See also:sonata See also:style with several extra movements, and in a few cases (as in the two serenades of See also:Beethoven) not containing any fully See also:developed examples of first-See also:movement form. The divertimento is a similar See also:composition., more often for chamber music, and frequently on a See also:scale altogether too small for the sonata style to show itself, though some examples by See also:Mozart (e.g. those for strings and two horns) are very large. The cassation is a smaller composition, beginning (like Beethoven's serenade op. 8) with a See also:march. The See also:classics of the serenade forms are among the See also:works of Mozart and See also:Haydn. Mozart's larger and later serenades, from the " Haffner " serenade onwards, are among his most delightful and voluminous lighter instrumental works. His two serenades for eight See also:wind See also:instruments are more serious, and that in C See also:minor (which he afterwards arranged as a See also:string quintet) is a majestic See also:work in four normal movements, which Mozart probably called a serenade only because he did not find the term octet then in See also:common use. The typical See also:scheme of a large serenade or divertimento differs from that of a symphony only in having six movements instead of four, the additions being another slow movement and See also:minuet or See also:scherzo. Beethoven's septet and See also:Schubert's octet are on this See also:plan, and are just as much serenades as Mozart's " Haffner " serenade, which is (not counting introductions) in eight movements with a kind of See also:violin See also:concerto in the See also:middle. The six-movement scheme (though without the serenade style) was adopted by Beethoven in one of the profoundest and most serious works in all music, the string quartet in B See also:flat, Op. 130.

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Brahms's first essays in symphonic form took the shape of two orchestral serenades, of which the first was originally sketched for a large See also:group of See also:solo instruments. If it had finally taken that form Brahms would have called it a divertimento. Other applications of the term in music are merely See also:literary. Even its use, from the 17th See also:century onwards, for a kind of operetta was clearly no more than a natural allusion to the notion of serenades as addressed at night by minstrels to ladies and by clients to patrons. (D. F.

End of Article: SERENADE (from Ital. serenata, Lat. serenus, bright; the Italian term being applied, partly by confusion with serus, late, and partly through the use of Serena—cf. Gr. ve?i7vri—as an epithet for the moon, to a form of courting music played at night in the

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