Scherzi (Chopin)
The four Scherzi Frédéric Chopin are among his most important piano works . With them he created a passionate, virtuoso confessional music, which with its high tempo (Presto, Prestissimo) and the numerous pianistic challenges is only accessible to great pianists .
The Scherzi - like his ballads - can be seen as a new genre. Chopin adopted the Beethoven movement type with the fast 3/4 time, the three-part ABA form and the trio middle section , which had replaced the minuet , and made it independent.
Apart from these formal similarities, the first three Scherzi differ diametrically from Beethoven's models in that, with their extreme expressiveness and high-tension drama, they almost turn the original character into the opposite. In contrast to the formally unbounded, more narrative ballads, which take up elements of the sonata main movement with the thematic dualism , as well as variation and rondo forms, the actual processing of the material in the Scherzi is reduced compared to a series of motifs.
The four Scherzi
- The Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20, is the wildest piece of this genre with its frenzied eighth note passages and sudden changes in mood.
- Much more popular is the second Scherzo in B flat minor, Op. 31 , composed and published in 1837 , the comparative length of which is due to the repetition of the first main part and the trio. The frequently played, very effective Scherzo captivates with the contrast within the two-part head theme between the threatening and eerie unison figure and the angry fortissimo chords in the upper register, the cantable melody of the secondary theme, which unfolds over a rolling accompanying figure, the dramatic development of the trio and the eruptive coda. The composer himself pointed out several times - to Wilhelm von Lenz , for example - the special significance of the gloomy sotto-voce triols of the opening figure. It should be played “like a grave” and remind of an ossuary .
- The third Scherzo in C sharp minor, Op. 39 , which was written between 1838 and 1839 and published in 1840, initially surprises with its questioning introductory figure and the wild octave passages played by both hands, which convey panic unrest. The musical climax is the beautiful middle section, which can be seen as a compositional peak in Chopin's oeuvre: a sonorous chorale theme is interrupted by impressionistic , trickling, leggiero cascades of eighth notes that are played over anthemic major and gloomy minor spheres in distant keys modulated and continued. In a short development, the arabesque-like figures and the chorale are processed until the recurring, urgent main theme leads on to the recapitulation, in which the chorale melody appears first in E minor , then in radiant C sharp major .
- The fourth Scherzo in E major, Op. 54, is an exception with its extended sonata form, the double development, and above all its sound poetic and light major character. The trio singing, which is accompanied by an increasingly complex accompanying figure and branched out polyphonically , is one of the composer's most beautiful melodic ideas. The work is vaguely reminiscent of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's elf-like joke type , even if the pianistic energy and dramatic power lift it far beyond this sphere.
Individual evidence
- ^ Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek , in: Composers Lexicon, Metzler, Stuttgart 2003, p. 129
- ↑ So Joachim Kaiser , Frédéric Chopin, The four Scherzi for piano, Kaisers Klassik, 100 masterpieces of music, Schneekluth, Augsburg 1997, p. 395