What is scherzo?
It is an Italian word, meaning joke (scherzo /ˈskɛərtsoʊ/, plural scherzos or scherzi). In music execution it can mean a certain way of playing a piece. If in a musical notation scherzando is written by the composer, it means that the music should be played in a playful manner.
The other meaning is to describe a complete musical piece or a movement within a composition. Early use of the word is from the baroque period, often for madrigals. Today, most often used to describe the third movement of a larger work, like a symphony or sonata.
In the history of music writing it is often said that scherzo developed from and replaced the minuet (a social dance for two, French origin). It retained the triple meter time signature and the ternary form (A-B-A, opening – following – repetition). Most probably these sped up minuets incorporated into a symphony was invented by the father of symphony, Haydn.
Examples of scherzos from Beethoven
The very first time Beethoven used the word scherzo and composed accordingly, was his Piano Trio in E-flat (premiered and published in 1795).
In the same year of the Trio he composed his Piano Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 2. This sonata’s third movement is a scherzo.
His First Symphony, has a third movement he called Minuetto, but the tempo makes it a scherzo.
Opus 24, Spring Sonata, his first violin sonata in four movements, also has a scherzo section.
Scherzos not always come in third place in a four movement sonata or symphony. Good example is his Piano Sonata No. 12 in A-flat major, Op. 26, where the scherzo is the second movement or the famous Moonlight Sonata, Op. 27.
Even in later years Beethoven remained faithful to these joyful movements, like in his Sixth Symphony, where the scherzo is interrupted by the storm scene, his mega-sonata the Hammerklavier or his Ninth Symphony.
