Scherzo

This article is about the musical term. For the Doctor Who audio play, see Scherzo (audio drama).

A scherzo (/ˈskɛrt.soʊ/; Italian pronunciation: [ˈskertso]; plural scherzos or scherzi), in western classical music, is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata, often in ³
₄ time. The precise definition has varied over the years, but scherzo often refers to a movement that replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or string quartet. Scherzo also frequently refers to a fast-moving humorous composition that may or may not be part of a larger work.

Origins

The word "scherzo," meaning "I joke," "I jest," or "I play" in Italian, is related to the same-root verb: scherzare ("to joke". "to jest"; "to play"). More rarely the similar meaning word "badinerie" (also spelled "battinerie"; from French "jesting") has been used. Sometimes the word "scherzando" ("joking") is used in musical notation to indicate that a passage should be executed in a playful manner.

An early use of the word scherzo in music is in light-hearted madrigals of the early baroque period, which were often called scherzi musicali, for example:

• Claudio Monteverdi wrote two sets of works with this title, in 1607 and in 1632.
• Antonio Brunelli wrote Scherzi, Arie, Canzonette e Madrigale for voices and instruments in 1616.
• Johann Baptist Schenk wrote Scherzi musicale (fourteen suites for gamba and continuo).

Later, composers applied the term scherzo, and sometimes badinerie to certain instrumental works in fast tempos in duple meter time signature, for example:

• The scherzo of Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita No. 3 for keyboard.

Suite No. 2 in B minor, 7. Badinerie

• The badinerie is best known for its designation as the final movement of Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor.
• Badineries in French ouvertures by Christoph Graupner and Georg Philipp Telemann.

The scherzo, as most commonly known today, developed from the minuet, and gradually came to replace it as the third (sometimes second) movement in symphonies, string quartets, sonatas, and similar works. It traditionally retains the triple meter time signature and ternary form of the minuet, but is considerably quicker. It is often, but not always, of a light-hearted nature.

Form

The scherzo itself is a rounded binary form, but, like the minuet, is usually played with the accompanying trio followed by a repeat of the scherzo, creating the ABA or ternary form. This is sometimes done twice or more (ABABA). The "B" theme is a trio, a contrasting section not necessarily for only three instruments, as was often the case with the second minuet of classical suites (the first Brandenburg concerto has a famous example).

Technique

Some scherzi transpose a repeated phrase. For example, in the second movement of Beethoven's 14th Piano Sonata the first four bars are played in the dominant key. The four bars following that are a repeat of the first four, but transposed up a perfect fourth to the tonic key. This effect creates the illusion of starting on the "wrong" key and "correcting" after the phrase is transposed.

Appearance/examples in compositions

Scherzi occasionally differ from this traditional structure in various ways.

• Some examples are not in the customary triple meter—for example, the Scherzo of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, which is in ²
  ₄ time; or the Trio section of the Scherzo from his Second Symphony which is in ²
  ₈ time. Another example is Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18. This example is also unusual in being written in orthodox sonata form rather than the usual ternary form for such a movement, and thus it lacks a Trio section. This sonata is also unusual in that the Scherzo is followed by a Minuet and Trio movement—whereas most sonatas have either a Scherzo movement or a Minuet movement, but not both. Some analysts have attempted to account for these irregularities by analyzing the Scherzo as the sonata's slow movement, which is rather fast. That would keep the traditional structure for a four-movement sonata that Beethoven usually followed, especially in the first half of his piano sonatas.
• Joseph Haydn wrote minuets that are close to scherzi in tone—but Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert first used the form widely, with Beethoven in particular turning the polite rhythm of the minuet into a much more intense — and sometimes even savage — dance.

The scherzo remained a standard movement in the symphony and related forms through the 19th century and beyond. Composers also began to write scherzi as pieces in themselves, stretching the boundaries of the form.

• The first three of Frédéric Chopin's four well-known scherzi for the piano are especially dark and/or dramatic, and hardly come off as jokes. Robert Schumann remarked of them, "How is 'gravity' to clothe itself if 'jest' goes about in dark veils?" Chopin's best known scherzo is his Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31.
• In a letter, Brahms referred to the scherzo from his Second Piano Concerto as a "little wisp of a scherzo", in one of his typically ursine pleasantries, as it is a heavyweight movement.

In present-day compositions, the scherzo has also made appearances.

• Australian Composer Julian Cochran wrote extensively for the form, with four scherzi for piano and two grand scherzi for symphony orchestra.
• The soundtrack release of John Williams' film score for Star Wars: The Force Awakens includes a track titled "Scherzo for X-Wings" which follows the typical scherzo rounded binary form and presents itself in a ⁶
  ₈ time.