Chopin's 4 Scherzi

                From Minuet to Scherzo 

                In the Classical era of the 18th century, most concert works had three 

        movements:  a fast movement, a slow movement, another fast movement.  
 
                The first concert works to have four movements were the symphony and 
        the string quartet.  The fourth  movement added to the three movement work's 
        traditional 'fast → slow → fast' pattern was a medium-paced minuet (Italian: 
        menuetto), most often added as the third movement but occasionally added 
        as the second.  
 
                The minuet was based on a 17th century aristocratic dance in 3/4 time that 
        was a favorite of King Louis XIV of France.  Over the next century the format 
        was enhanced and it was no longer suitable for dancing.  The nature of a minuet 
        was serious and dignified. 

                Later in the 18th century, Joseph Haydn sometimes replaced the minuet with 
         what he called a scherzo.  Scherzo means "joke" in Italian and Haydn's scherzo  
         were more playful and witty than a minuet.  Although Haydn only used scherzos  
          occasionally, Ludwig van Beethoven would use them far more than minuets and 
          by 1810 it was rare for anyone to write a minuet (Chopin only wrote one 
          for his first piano sonata).

                 While Beethoven's scherzos could be intense rather than playful, Chopin's 
        were often dark and ominous, with feelings of horror, terror, and violence, 
        thus making the 'joke' ironic.  


                   Besides his four stand-alone scherzos, Chopin's second and third piano 
                   sonatas, and his cello sonata and piano trio had scherzos movements.

        Minuets and Scherzos are usually in ternary form (A→B→ A)


                The Baroque minuet dance (1:00)    

                Mozart       -  Minuet from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik  (1787)  (1:00)

                Beethoven  -  Scherzo from Symphony No. 3 "Eroica"  (1805)  (1:30)

                Beethoven  -  Scherzo from Piano Sonata No. 29 'Hammerklavier' (1:45)

                                   (Total Time = 4:50)



        Scherzi


             "It should be a house of the dead", Chopin is supposed to have said of the opening motif 
              of the Scherzo in B flat minor.

                Scherzo No. 2 in Bb minor, Op. 31  (1837)

                             Evengy Kissin (1985), piano  (6:00 - cut)  


             "How will gravity array itself, if wit is already cloaked so darkly?" asked Robert 
               Schumann in his review of Chopin's Scherzo in B minor, Op. 20.

                Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20  (1831-2)

                             Vladimir Horowitz, piano  (6:00 - cut A & B)  

                 Scherzo No. 3 in C♯ minor,  Op. 39  (1839–40)

                           Daniil Trifonov, piano  (7:30)


                 Scherzo No. 4 in E major, Op. 54 (1842–43)