Kodály's Serenade of 1919–20 revives an old genre for the unusual trio of two violins and viola. Written during a turbulent year in Hungarian history, it wears its troubles lightly: the outer movements crackle with Magyar dance rhythms from the folk music Kodály and Bartók collected village by village, while the eerie central movement is a nocturnal courtship scene, the first violin serenading over shivering viola tremolos. Bartók himself hailed its “wealth of invention.”
