Serenade for Strings (Elgar)

[3] The critic Ernest Newman wrote in a 1906 study of Elgar that the Serenade and the concert overture Froissart (1890) were the only two works of importance among the composer's output before the mid 1890s: "the rest are experiments in various smaller forms – songs, pieces for piano and violin, part songs, slight pieces for small orchestra, &c".

[4] The work was first given in a private performance in 1892 by the Worcester Ladies' Orchestral Class, with the composer conducting.

[12] The work is dedicated to the organ builder and amateur musician Edward W. Whinfield, who had encouraged the composer in his early years.

The gently rocking 68 metre of the first movement, the direction "piacevole" (pleasantly/agreeably) and avoidance of harmonic tension suggest a cradle song, according to the analyst Daniel Grimley, and an aubade according to Elgar's biographer Michael Kennedy.

[15][16] The movement opens with a figure in the violas that recurs throughout: The main theme is heard from the third bar: The middle section is an arching melody, moving briefly into the minor, before the coda presents a new theme derived from the opening subject, which itself returns to bring the movement to a quiet conclusion.

The Serenade has become one of Elgar’s most popular works, particularly with amateur groups, youth ensembles, and chamber orchestras,[2] and is among the most recorded of his compositions.