Scherzo No.1 in B minor, Op.20

chopin: ballade in A flat

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

Scherzo No.1 in B minor, Op.20

Nocturne in B major, Op.9, No.3

Scherzo No.4 in E major, Op.54

It would be a mistake to underestimate the extent of Chopin’s success in sonata form. He did, after all, write two of the most popular of all piano sonatas and a particularly fine cello sonata. But it is probably true to say that the ballade and the scherzo were more congenial to him: one he more or less invented to suit his lyrical genius; the other he adapted to accommodate his less abundant but no less intense flair for the dramatic. His work in scherzo form was, in fact, complementary and parallel to his work in ballade form. The first Ballade and the first Scherzo were both conceived in about 1831 and - after what seems like far more than a decade of development in style and temper­ament - the fourth and last of each set was completed in 1842

Although a macabre element was not unknown in the scherzo when Chopin adopted the form, the character of the First in B minor was still so unconventional that Schumann was moved by it to make his classic remark that if this is a joke he would like to know what serious music sounds like. When it first came onto the market in this country, the publisher thought it expedient to ignore Chopin’s title and call it “The Infernal Banquet.” In conventional ternary form, it ends in a mood as “bold and stormy” (in Schumann’s words) as it began. The intervention of the Polish Christmas song, “Sleep, Baby Jesus,” as the basis of a serenely lyrical middle section in the relative major, has no influence on the emotional outcome.

The Fourth Scherzo, in the bright key of E major, is good-humoured, capricious and unpredictable. Basically, with quick outer sections and a slow middle section in the relative minor, it is a conventional ternary construction. But there is a remarkable flexibility within that basic shape. It accomodates not only a wonderfully effective allusion to the middle section just before the precipitous coda but also a combination of scherzo and sonata form, with first and second subjects and development and recapitulation. There is also a new purity in the piano writing, above all in the simple two-part texture of a trio section so very different from its richly scored counterparts in the earlier scherzos.

 Js1 1835, pub 1835

159, 163

js2 93-4 128 150-3 167 179 222 235

93 There are other dubious traditions, notably a report that the first Scherzo and first Ballade were sketched in Vienna in 1830-1…A much later date - certainly no sooner than 1833, and probably 1834-5 - is indicated for both works on stylistic grounds.

151 Essentially the work encloses a popular melody (almost certainly based on the opening phrase of a Polish carol) within a bravura figuration, exacly in the manner of post-classical models…The even rhythm and unchanging texture of the B major trio (the Polish carol) is made possible here by a surrounging figuration of unprecedented drive and energy