A scherzo (, , ; plural scherzos or scherzi), in western classical music, is a short composition – sometimes a movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata. 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. The term can also refer to a fast-moving humorous composition that may or may not be part of a larger work.
Origins
The Italian word scherzo means "joke" or "jest". 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 (plural scherzos or scherzi) 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. Chopin's four scherzos are written as single movements, on an unprecedented large scale going beyond the previous Beethovenian model of classical multi-movement works.
- 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 sarcastic remarks, as it is a heavyweight movement.
- Other examples; the second movement of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10, the second (sometimes third) movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 6, Felix Mendelssohn's composition for A Midsummer Night's Dream between act 1 and 2, and in several of Bruckner's symphonies.
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 (2015) includes a track titled "Scherzo for X-Wings" which follows the typical scherzo rounded binary form and presents itself in a time. Williams had previously composed "Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra" for the film score of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) and in 1985 the Scherzo for Today for NBC's The Today Show.