Johannes Brahms was long reluctant to compete with Beethoven in the field of symphonic music. With his D-major Serenade in six movements, the young composer deliberately chose a genre that had had its golden era in the 18th century, thus before Beethoven. Initially, he even conceived the Serenade for a smaller setting, but decided on a full orchestra in 1860. But even then, it was slow in becoming an audience success.

The new Brahms Complete Edition has chosen as its principal source a copy of the scores first edition that Brahms used as his personal work copy. There, however, errors remained undiscovered, and recurred in later print runs as well. It was not until the new Brahms Edition that a music text of the D-major Serenade is finally being published, a text that clearly heeds all of the composers emendations and eliminates other shortcomings.

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