Serenade

The serenade is a multi-movement instrumental work of light, entertaining character, historically written for evening performance outdoors or at court. In its Classical form, codified by *Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart*, it assembles marches, minuets, slow movements and concertante solos for scorings that range from wind octet to string orchestra, favouring charm and clarity over symphonic argument. Nineteenth-century composers transferred the title to string works of greater lyric weight, among them the serenades of *Johannes Brahms*, *Antonín Dvořák* and *Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky*, while the word also survives for a lover's evening song sung beneath a window.