Scherzo

Scherzo [' skɛrʦo ] (plural Scherzi ) is the term for a musical sentence form and one of the many Italianisms the German musical language.

The Scherzo ( from Italian scherzo "joke" ) is Joseph Haydn 's string quartets op since 33 and later Ludwig van Beethoven usually the third movement of a sonata or symphony. It emerged from the minuet, a three-part dance movement in 3/4-time that has been integrated in the Vienna classical music, for example, Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Sonata / Symphonic and has its origin in turn courtly dance music of the Baroque.

A distinction between minuet and scherzo is often difficult. So Haydn returned to Op 33 Minuet back again to the concept, although the third sets op 76 and 77 partially pure Scherzi are in many of his later symphonies and even more in the string quartets (often with the tempo marking Allegro or Presto). Beethoven avoided the term problem by citing the names of terms minuet or scherzo he renounced often entirely from his middle period (eg in the Symphony No. 5 ).

A scherzo is mostly moving (fast) and is played cheerful and lively ( tempo markings in music: Allegro Vivace or Presto). In part, metric " aberrations " found by the 3/4-time is superimposed for example by 2/4-Phrasen. The usual form scheme, as in the Minuet, Scherzo - Trio - Scherzo, even Beethoven treated the form but rather freely. In the music of the Romantic often occur added more central parts, so that the schema, for example, A - can mean A " - B - A ' - C.

The scherzo can develop different colorations: the cheerful dance set to demonic ( Frédéric Chopin in his contributions to the genre ), whirring -pending ( Felix Mendelssohn ), powerful, rustic ( Anton Bruckner ), melancholy, grotesque ( Gustav Mahler ) or tragicomic ( Dmitri Shostakovich ) atmosphere.