Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

SCHERZO SCHERZO 259
humour or fancy in either of these. Many
of the Gigues are far more frolicsome than
these.
Coming to the period of the Symphony it
may be as well to remind the reader of a fact
which will be more enlarged upon under that
heading, namely, that the presence of the
Minuet or Scherzo in works of the symphonic
class, is a matter of natural selection, or survival
of the fittest. In the old Suites the Minuet,
being of rather shorter rhythm than the other
dances, was seized upon, perhaps unconsciously,
by the great masters who tied themselves down
to the old form, and was exaggerated out of all
recognition for the sake of contrast. The actual
Minuet, as danced from the 16th century up
to the present day (if any one still learns it),
is in the time of that famous specimen in
Mozart's Don ' Juan,' or say M.M. J= 80. Yet
even in the Suites of Bach one finds quick and
slow Minuets, neither having any regard to the
requirements of the dance. [The slow tempo
was obligatory only where dancing was concerned
;
quicker Minuets were recognised in
quite early days.] When we come to Haydn
the term Minuet ceases to have any meaning ;
the stateliness and character of the dance are
quite gone, and what we should call a Waltz
appears. But with the true instinct of an
artist, Haydn felt that in a work containing
such heavy subtleties (for even Haydn was
deemed heavy and subtle once) as the ordinary
first movement and slow movement, a piece of
far lighter character was imperativelydemanded.
So lighter and quicker and more sportive grew
the Minuets, till Beethoven crowned the incongruous
fashion with the Minuet ' ' of this First
Symphony. It should be mentioned, however,
that Mozart never departed nearly so far from
the true Minuet as Haydn, whose gaiety of
musical thought drove him into really inventing
the Scherzo, though he did not use the
name. The Minuets of many of the String
Quartets of Haydn exhibit indeed those quaint
and fanciful devices of unexpected reiteration,
surprises of rhythm, and abrupt terminations,
which are the leading characteristics of the
Scherzo, and are completely opposed to the
spirit of the true Minuet. One which begins
and ends each part with these bars
is a strong instance in point.
Beethoven quickly gave the Scherzo the permanent
position in the Symphony which it now
occupies. He also settled its form and character.
It is a good answer to those who consider the
classical forms worn out and irksome to the
flow of inspiration to point out that in the
Scherzo, where full rein is given to the individual
caprice of the musician, there is as much attention
given to construction as anywhere. In
fact, either the bold and masculine First-movement
form, or its sister, the weaker and more
feminine Rondo form, must be the backbone of
every piece of music with any pretensions to
the name. But, lest the light and airy character
of the Scherzo should be spoilt by the
obtrusion of the machinery, the greater composers
have sought to obscure the form artistically
by several devices, the most frequent and
obvious being the humorous persistent dwelling
on some one phrase— generally the leading
feature of the first subject—and introducing it
in and out of sea.son, mixed up with any or all
of the other subjects. Witness the Scherzo of
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, where the opening
phrase for the drums is used as an accompaniment
to the second subject—indeed as a
persistent motto ' ' throughout. Apart from
this there is not the slightest departure from
rigid First-movement form in this great movement.
The Trio, which is a relic of the Mintiet and
takes the position of third subject or middle
section in a Rondo, survives because of the
naturally felt want of a contrast to the rapid
rhythm of the Scherzo. Many modern composers
affect to dispense with it, but there is
usually a central section answering to it, even
though it be not divided off from the rest by a
double bar. Mendelssohn has been the most
successful in writing Scherzos without Trios.
The main idea was to have a movement in
extremely short and marked rhythm, for which
purpose triple time is of course the best. In
the Pianoforte Sonatas the Scherzo to that in
Eb (op. 31, Ko. 3) is the only instance where
Beethoven has employed 2-4. The Trios to
the Scherzos of the Pastoral and Choral Symphonies
are 2-4 and C for special reasons of
effect and contrast. It may be worth noticing
that Beethoven invariably writes 3-4 even
where 6-8 or 3-8 could equally well have been
employed. This is no doubt in order that the
written notes should appeal to the eye as much
as the sounded notes to the ear. In fact three
crotchets, with their separate stems, impress
far more vividly on the mind of the player the
composer's idea of tripping lightness and quick
rhythm than three quavers with united tails.
Having once ousted the Minuet, Beethoven
seldom re-introduced it, the instances in which
he has done so being all very striking, and
showing that a particularly fine idea drove him
to use a .worn-out means of expression. In
several cases (PF. Sonatas in E|>, op. 7 ; in F,
op. 10, etc.) where there is no element of humour,
he has abstained from the idle mockery of
calling the movement a Minuet, because it is
not a Scherzo, as others have done
;
yet, on
the other hand, the third movements of both
the First Fourth, and Eighth Symphonies are