Serenade, Op. 37

Composer: RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, Nikolai
  • Rimsky-Korsakov composed this piece for cello and piano in 1893 and created an orchestral transcription in 1903.1
  • In his autobiographical work, The Chronicle of My Musical Life, Rimsky-Korsakov noted that while he was visiting Yalta in Jun 1893, “…I jotted down a small musical piece for violoncello and recorded a few other things.” (That refers to his first sketch of this piece.)2
  • The orchestral version is dedicated “to my son Andre” (à mon fils André.) Andrey Nikolayevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1878-1940) played the cello in the family string quartet as a child. He grew up to be a music critic, music librarian and musicologist.3 

Sources

  1. Marina Frolova-Walker, Mark Humphreys, Lyle Neff, Rita McAllister, Iosif Genrikhovich Rayskin, and Detlef Gojowy, “Rimsky-Korsakov family,” Grove Music Online (2001), January 8, 2020, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000052074.
  2. Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Serenade Op. 37 (United States: Alfred Music, 1999), iii.
  3. Frolova-Walker, et al, “Rimsky-Korsakov family,” Grove Music Online.

Cut IDs

18945, 23154