Serenade & Scherzo
for Viola Quintet
TITLE
Serenade & Scherzo for Viola Quintet
DURATION
5 minutes
YEAR OF COMPOSITION
2021
INSTRUMENTATION
2 violins, 2 violas, 1 cello
LICENSING
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
PURCHASE
Coming Soon
COMPOSER'S NOTE
Serenade & Scherzo is a little chamber work for Viola quintet. I wrote it for my friend Jim Kelly, violist extraordinaire and president of the National Philharmonic.
The classic serenade is a musical greeting from lover to beloved. The classic image immortalized in renaissance art is that of the lover singing while strumming a lute below the window of the beloved.
There's a touch of melancholy to my Serenade, which lends itself well to the expressive range of a string quintet.
The Scherzo is an agitato counterpoint to the Serenade. I borrowed the theme from the first movement of my own Cello Sonata in C Minor. While a classic scherzo is typically a lighthearted interlude (scherzo means "jest" in Italian), this one is less jest and more jilt.
Enjoy!