Serenade for a Melancholic Sea was written at the suggestion of Gidon Kremer, to whom the work is dedicated. Commissioned by Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, it was written in memory of Toru Takemitsu.

The sound material of the serenade contains both Toru Takemitsu’s and Gidon Kremer’s monograms. Takemitsu’s “sea motif” — E-flat, E, A — is also present. In this way, Gidon and Toru meet again symbolically in the spaceless and timeless sea of music.

In this piece, the orchestra and soloists play very different roles. The orchestral writing is complex despite its delicacy. Auerbach imagined a painting that, from a distance, gives the impression of a monochrome canvas; on closer inspection, however, one discovers differentiated, fine brushstrokes.

The string orchestra is divided into twenty-three independent voices, each contributing a different perspective to the constantly changing play of colors. Against this calm and multi-layered background, the protagonists — violin, cello and piano — appear as independent figures in a wide, open space.

• Takemitsu The work is written in memory of Toru Takemitsu and includes his “sea motif.”
• Kremer Written at the suggestion of Gidon Kremer and dedicated to him.
• Sea The piece imagines music as a timeless sea in which memory and presence meet.

The serenade unfolds as a delicate concertante landscape. Rather than placing the soloists in a heroic relationship to the ensemble, the work allows them to move as solitary figures against a finely divided string surface.

The result is both intimate and expansive: chamber music opened into orchestral space, and orchestral color refined into the fragile details of chamber music.