Adagio for Strings Adagio for Strings Adagio for Strings is a work by Samuel Barber, arguably his best known, arranged for string orchestra from the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11. Barber finished the arrangement in 1936, the same year that he wrote the quartet. It was performed for the first time on November 5, 1938, by Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra in a radio broadcast from NBC Studio 8H. Toscanini also played the piece on his South American tour with the NBC Symphony in 1940. Its reception was generally positive, with Alexander J. Morin writing that "Adagio for
Serenade for Strings (Tchaikovsky) Serenade for Strings (Tchaikovsky) Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48, was composed in 1880. "Serenade for Strings" has 4 movements: Tchaikovsky intended the first movement to be an imitation of Mozart's style, and it was based on the form of the classical sonatina, with a slow introduction. The stirring 36-bar "Andante" introduction is marked "sempre marcatissimo" and littered with double-stopping in the violins and violas, forming towering chordal structures. This introduction is restated at the end of the movement, and then reappears, transformed, in the coda of the fourth movement, tying the entire work together. On the