Scherzo
A fast, playful triple-time movement, often replacing the minuet
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A scherzo is a fast, playful movement in triple time, usually the third movement of a symphony, sonata or quartet, replacing the Classical minuet. It often brings sudden accents, displaced rhythms and short motifs.
It differs from a minuet: the minuet is elegant and courtly, the scherzo deliberately breaks etiquette; it also differs from a joke: its "laughter" can be dark. The usual mistake is to assume a scherzo is light — Beethoven's scherzos often carry unease and irony.
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Sources
- 谐谑曲的曲式位置与贝多芬以来的用法，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Scherzo"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.