A very familiar, yet always fresh and intensely interesting composition
is this scherzo. The name is an Italian word signifying a jest, and we
find in musical nomenclature a number of derivatives from it, as
_scherzino_ (little jest) and _scherzando_ (jestingly, playfully). The
term is used by most composers to designate compositions that are
bright, playful, humorous in character. Nearly all the leading composers
have written more or less in this vein. Mendelssohn particularly
excelled in it, and even serious old Beethoven became quite jocose at
times in the scherzo movements of his symphonies; though it always
reminds one of the sportive dancing of an elephant.
Chopin applied the name to four of his greatest, most intense and
impassioned works, seemingly without the smallest reason or relevancy.
Why, no one can even surmise, unless it may have been in a mood of
sardonic perversity, of sarcastic bitterness, purposely to mislead the
public as to the real artistic intention and significance of the music,
and see if they would have sufficient perception to discover it for
themselves. It is a sad commentary on the insight of many of our
so-called musicians, that they have not done so even to this day, and
persist in playing the Chopin scherzi jestingly and as trivially as
possible, which may be the subtle, covert jest which Chopin intended.
Who knows? In reality these four works, especially the first three of
them, are among his greatest and grandest. They are broad, heroic,
seriously and profoundly emotional productions, marking the high-water
line of his creative power; full of the strength and virile energy which
those acquainted only with his nocturnes and waltzes are inclined to
deny him altogether, but in which he far exceeds all other composers,
past or present, with the possible exception of Beethoven and Wagner.
Jests only in name, or, if in fact, then in the sense of bitterest
satire, aimed at the world and at life, jests written in the heart’s
blood of the composer; written when Poland, his beloved native land, lay
in her death agony, when three great European powers had combined to
write the word _finis_ in Polish blood and tears, across the last page
of her history. What wonder that the music throbs with intense but
conflicting emotions—fiery indignation, fierce defiance, bitter scorn,
and, in the next breath, pitiful tenderness for the wronged and the
suffering, heart-breaking sorrow for the unavailing heroism and wasted
lives of his countrymen!
All these moods will be found in swift and sharply contrasting
succession in all the four scherzi, but notably in the one in B flat
minor, which I regard as the best of the four. The seeming incongruity
between its name and its musical content, its ostensible and its real
significance, always recalls to me famous lines:
“The lip that’s first to wing the jest
Is first to breathe the secret sigh;
The laugh that rings with keenest zest
But chokes the flood-gates of the eye.”