Serenade, Op.10

While Bartók and Dohnányi had little in common as composers - except that they both studied at the Budapest Academy in the late 1890s and with the same teachers - they had the greatest admiration for each other. As a pianist, according to Bartók, Dohnányi was “undoubtedly among the three greatest of our epoch.” As a conductor, he was “also of superior standing.” As a composer, he wrote music “of unquestionable value” - although Bartók had to add to this judgement his opinion that “there is nothing really new in it… The German character of his works makes him less important from the national Hungarian point of view.” Even so, Bartók was profoundly influenced in his youth by his only slightly older colleague’s Piano Quintet, Op.1, and he was much impressed too by his Serenade for string trio, Op.10.

The Serenade is, indeed, a remarkable work, and not only because it was written by a composer no more than 25 years old. Based on Beethoven’s Serenade for string trio, Op.8, it is superior to its model in most respects. The opening Marcia has a similar long-term structural function to that of the equivalent movement in the Beethoven but it is both more tuneful and more resourcefully scored. The Romanze with its charmingly melodious outer sections and its quicker middle section, driven by a passionate exchange between violin and cello round a sustained surge of viola arpeggios, is a masterful example of the difficult art of writing for string trio.

There is nothing in the Beethoven Serenade to match the contrapuntal brilliance of Dohnányi’s Scherzo, which excels itself when it finally combines the fugal texture of the opening section with the lyrical material from the central trio section. In a serenade context, the Tema con variazioni is an uncommonly expressive inspiration with a particularly beautifully coloured fifth and last variation. Like Beethoven’s, Dohnányi’s Serenade ends with a return of the opening march, which is recalled here as a neatly engineered conclusion to a brilliantly Haydnesque Rondo.