Scherzo - No Laughing Matter?

At our February meeting we welcomed back Geoff Trinick from Cardiff RMS. His entertaining presentation was all about the Scherzo. Normally a lively piece of music, we heard that it is not always a joking matter, as Bruckner showed in a darkly dramatic scherzo in one of his symphonies.

Geoff started with a pioneer scherzo by Haydn – always good for a joke – and progressed via Beethoven and many others to modern times. The sequence included the descriptive scherzo from Vaughan Williams’ well-loved London Symphony, and ended with the ‘Mickey Mouse’ music of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Dukas, famously used in Fantasia.