"Serenade for Strings - IV" genre: Contemporary
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	Pesante/Allegro. Neo-classical string piece. Synth version. Click on the title to view the program notes.
	MP3.com CD: Cats, Foxes, and Other Animals - buy it! CD: Cats, Foxes and Other Animals Credits: Composed and produced by D.A.Earnest © 1994 (BMI)
	Story Behind the Song n January of 1994, my brother and his fiancee informed me that they were going to have a string quartet perform during the ceremony and reception of their July outdoor wedding. I had just put the finishing touches on my String Trio No. 1 on the 15th and wanted now to compose something in a lighter vein. The wedding presented the perfect opportunity. The first theme for the first movement came to me while falling asleep one night. I notated the theme on a piece of scrap paper that I had beside my bed exactly as it now appears in the piece. From then on the music came quickly. In 15 days I had finished all four movements: movement one in 5 days, movement two in 5 days, movement three in 2 days, and movement four in 3 days. The quartet of June Itami premiered the first movement on June 23, 1994 for the Susan Bauman Memorial Scholarship Concert presented by the Idaho Suzuki Institute. The same quartet performed only movement one for the wedding recessional on July 2, 1994. In May of 1995 the first complete performance was given by the Albertson College Community Orchestra. I chose the name Serenade for Strings because the conditions for the wedding matched a definition found in the Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music, serenade: evening music, properly for outdoor performance, e.g., a lovers wooing song, or instrumental music presented as an homage. In form and style the serenade is similar to the divertimento. I did, however, restrict myself to the standard classical/romantic four movement string quartet form. Later I added a contrabass part to fill out the string section sound. IV - Finale: Largo, Allegro The introduction of the last movement is a melodramatic parody I have subtitled The Lament for Lost Bachelorhood in joking reference to my brother. The rest of the piece is in rondo form, ABACA. The B section reminds me of a group of drunken villagers singing and raising their cups in the air. The C section is a fughetta comprised of the combined themes from the first three movements.

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