Scherzo, Op.16, No.2 [1889]

Like Sgambati and Vianna da Motta, Eugen d’Albert was a protégé of Liszt, who referred to him as “the young lion” or - less flatteringly, bearing in mind his short stature - “the little giant” or even “Albert Magnus.” Like Chabrier’s Bourrée fantasque, the Scherzo of d’Albert’s Four Piano Pieces, Op.16, is dedicated to Edouard Risler, one of his many distinguished pupils. That, however, apart from a basically similar ternary shape, is all the two works have in common. D’Albert was incapable of writing anything as conspicuously eccentric as the Bourrée fantasque, just as Chabrier was incapable of writing anything as exquisitely and as exclusively frothy as this brilliant little Scherzo. First published in 1889, d’Albert’s Scherzo was an immediate success with the public but, as with everything else he wrote, its popularity did not long outlive the composer himself.