Historically, a serenade was a piece of music written for entertainment purposes, and usually to honor someone. For example, Mozart wrote a handful of serenades for wedding ceremonies. How is it, then, that the ultra-serious Johannes Brahms ended up writing two serenades? In many ways, the Brahms Serenades were a bit of a warm up for his symphonies. We’ll hear his Serenade No. 2 in A tonight at 7: our Evening Masterwork on Classical WSMR 89.1 and 103.9.