Serenade for Strings in C major, op. 48

Resting at his sister's estate in Kamenka in 1880, Tchaikovsky was overtaken by listlessness and began sketching what he described to Nadezhda von Meck as a future symphony or string quintet; the work itself, he wrote, restored his spirits at once. What emerged was the Serenade for strings. In the first movement he paid what he called a debt to Mozart, deliberately imitating his orchestral manner after studying Die Zauberflöte at the piano, and hoping listeners would find him not too far from the model.