ABSTRACT
This chapter determines whether Chopin’s scherzos should be considered a separate genre — or whether they may be said to belong to the listing genre of scherzo, as understood at the time. The term ‘genre’ is used in music in different ways and may refer to different kinds and different levels of classification. It is used both to describe an entire class of musical works, for example religious music, and also particular types of works within that class, as for example, religious song. In lexicography of the first half of the 19th century, ‘scherzo’ was usually described in terms of the word’s litearal meaning, with connotations of the ‘playful’ or the ‘cheerful’, as expressed through a lively, but not too quick tempo and rhythmic movement. The musical practice of the period enables to broaden and to clarify the picture which emerges from this dictionary accounts.
