type. Without relaxing pace it passes and drops like a
thunderbolt into the bowels of the earth. Again the story is told, and
tarrying not at all we are led to a most delectable spot in the key of
A major. This trio is marked by genius. Can anything be more bewitching
than the episode in C sharp minor merging into E major, with the
overflow at the close? The fantasy is notable for variety of tonality,
freedom in rhythmical incidents and genuine power. The coda is dizzy
and overwhelming. For Schumann this Scherzo is Byronic in tenderness
and boldness. Karasowski speaks of its Shakespearian humor, and indeed
it is a very human and lovable piece of art. It holds richer, warmer,
redder blood than the other three and like the A flat Ballade, is
beloved of the public. But then it is easier to understand.

Opus 39, the third Scherzo in C sharp minor, was composed or finished
at Majorca and is the most dramatic of the set. I confess to see no
littleness in the polished phrases, though irony lurks in its bars and
there is fever in its glance--a glance full of enigmatic and luring
scorn. I heartily agree with Hadow, who finds the work clear cut and of
exact balance. And noting that Chopin founded whole paragraphs "either
on a single phrase repeated in similar shapes or on two phrases in
alternation"--a primitive practice in Polish folksongs--he asserts that
"Beethoven does not attain the lucidity of his style by such
parallelism of phraseology," but admits that Chopin's methods made for
"clearness and precision...may be regarded as characteristic of the
national manner." A thoroughly personal characteristic too.

There is virile clangor in the firmly struck octaves of the opening
pages. No hesitating, morbid view of life, but rank, harsh
assertiveness, not untinged with splenetic anger. The chorale of the
trio is admirably devised and carried out. Its piety is a bit of
liturgical make-believe. The contrasts here are most artistic--sonorous
harmonies set off by broken chords that deliciously tinkle. There is a
coda of frenetic movement and the end is in major, a surprising
conclusion when considering all that has gone before. Never to become
the property of the profane, the C sharp minor Scherzo, notwithstanding
its marked asperities and agitated moments, is a great work of art.
Without the inner freedom of its predecessor, it is more sober and
self-contained than the B minor Scherzo.

The fourth Scherzo, op. 54, is in the key