Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings: Music from the Heart

In November of 1880, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was hard at work on two sharply contrasting pieces. The first was the bombastic and commemorative 1812 Overture, a piece the composer delivered out of a sense of dutiful professional obligation. The second was the elegant and soulful Serenade for Strings in C Major. Regarding the Serenade, Tchaikovsky wrote to his publisher, “I am violently in love with this work and cannot wait for it to be played.” In an …

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