Beethoven's Serenade, op. 8.
It was for such purposes that the serenade was invented as an instrumental form. Since they were to play out of doors, Sir Thurio's musicians would have used wind instruments instead of viols, and the oldest serenades are composed for oboes and bassoons. Clarinets and horns were subsequently added, and for such bands Mozart wrote serenades, some of which so closely approach the symphony that they have been published as symphonies. A serenade in the olden time opened very properly with a march, to the strains of which we may imagine the musicians approaching the lady's chamber window. Then came a minuet to prepare her ear for the "deploring dump" which followed, the "dump" of Shakespeare's day, like the "dumka" of ours (with which I am tempted to associate it etymologically), being a mournful piece of music most happily characterized by the poet as a "sweet complaining grievance." Then followed another piece in merry tempo and rhythm, then a second adagio, and the entertainment ended with an allegro, generally in march rhythm, to which we fancy the musicians departing. The order is exemplified in Beethoven's serenade for violin, viola, and violoncello, op. 8, which runs thus: March; Adagio; Minuet; Adagio with episodic Scherzo; Polacca; Andante (variations), the opening march repeated.
The Orchestral Suite.
Ballet music.
The Suite has come back into favor as an orchestral piece, but the term no longer has the fixed significance which once it had. It is now applied to almost any group of short pieces, pleasantly contrasted in rhythm, tempo, and mood, each complete in itself yet disclosing an æsthetic relationship with its fellows. Sometimes old dance forms are used, and sometimes new, such as the polonaise and the waltz. The ballet music, which fills so welcome a place in popular programmes, may be looked upon as such a suite, and the rhythm of the music and the orchestral coloring in them are frequently those peculiar to the dances of the countries in which the story of the opera or drama for which the music was written plays. The ballets therefore afford an excellent opportunity for the study of local color. Thus the ballet music from Massenet's "Cid" is Spanish, from Rubinstein's "Feramors" Oriental, from "Aïda" Egyptian—Oriental rhythms and colorings being those most easily copied by composers.
Operatic excerpts.
Gluck and Vestris.
The other operatic excerpts common to concerts of both classes are either between-acts music, fantasias on operatic airs, or, in the case of Wagner's contributions, portions of his dramas which are so predominantly instrumental that it has been found feasible to incorporate the vocal part with the orchestral. In ballet music from the operas of the last century, some of which has been preserved to the modern concert-room, local color must not be sought. Gluck's Greeks, like Shakespeare's, danced to the rhythms of the seventeenth century. Vestris, whom the people of his time called "The god of the dance," once complained to Gluck that his "Iphigénie en Aulide" did not end with a chaconne, as was the rule. "A chaconne!" cried Gluck; "when did the Greeks ever dance a chaconne?" "Didn't they? Didn't they?" answered Vestris; "so much the worse for the Greeks." There ensued a quarrel. Gluck became incensed, withdrew the opera which was about to be produced, and would have left Paris had not Marie Antoinette come to the rescue. But Vestris got his chaconne.
