No. 3627 Edited by Graham Bastable
Well after Elgar had written larger, more ambitious works such as Enigma Variations, The dream of Gerontius and Cello Concerto, he considere his youthful Serenade for strings, Opus 20 among his favorite works. Along with his Introduction and Allegro and ELEGY, it remains as a staple in the string orchestra repertoire.
For this new version for String Quartet, Mr. Bastable has mostly preserved Elgar's bowings, with a few adjustments to make it more idiomatic for chamber playing. In two places in the orchestral version, Elgar gives the melody to a solo violin. In the string quartet version, these two spots - in movement 1, measure 70 (cello) and movement 3, measure 52 (Violin II) - are marked "SOLO".
|
