How to Use scherzo in a Sentence

scherzo

noun

• Alsop drew gorgeous playing from the strings in the slow movement, vivid work from winds and brass in the scherzo and finale.
  — Tim Smith, baltimoresun.com, 16 June 2017
• The inner movements went along just fine, with horns in fine fettle in the jolly scherzo.
  — Dallas News, 18 Nov. 2022
• But in the lightning-fast scherzo, the group maintained total control.
  — Tim Diovanni, Dallas News, 16 Apr. 2021
• The rough hewn Menuet (a scherzo in all but name) was similarly forceful.
  — cleveland, 21 Oct. 2019
• There was grandeur in the marchlike second movement; an aptly rolling tempo in the scherzo; and shades of Mussorgsky in the finale.
  — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 13 June 2019
• Only twice in 65 minutes — once in the final pages of the scherzo and again near the close of the soloists with chorus — did Kalmar achieve a surpassing level of tension.
  — Alan G. Artner, chicagotribune.com, 19 Aug. 2017
• The scherzo had lithe energy, if less mystery and suspense.
  — Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 4 May 2017
• Even the scherzo, marked con fuoco (with fire), is also marked Allegro non troppo — fast, but not too fast.
  — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 3 May 2023
• The trio of the scherzo was properly exhilarating, and the finale’s tenor solo quite briskly urged us on our way.
  — Dallas News, 13 May 2022
• Tempos one notch faster than Trevino’s would have given the opening more urgency, and the lush trios of the scherzo more coherence.
  — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 29 Feb. 2020
• The scherzo and finale were taken at fleet tempos that would feel scrambled on the piano, but worked well enough with the chamber ensemble.
  — Dallas News, 27 Feb. 2023
• The trio blasted through the scherzo, a quintessential Ivesian clangor that mashes together a whole sheaf of folk tunes and hymns.
  — Zoë Madonna, BostonGlobe.com, 3 July 2019
• The scherzo was allowed its craziness, San Francisco style.
  — Mark Swed, latimes.com, 28 Mar. 2018
• So when the scherzo movement misfired and required a retake, the audience seemed to care about as much as when a drink spills at a boisterous party, which is to say, not at all.
  — Jeremy Eichler, BostonGlobe.com, 17 June 2018
• There was, however, plenty of rhythm in the scherzo, and the finale had a sometimes playful question-and-answer character.
  — Richard S. Ginell, latimes.com, 26 Apr. 2018
• Even the scherzo, which can be craggy, had a wonderful malleable quality.
  — Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2019
• Underpinning the piece is the impatient rhythmic motif from the scherzo of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
  — Corinna Da Fonseca-Wollheim, New York Times, 10 Mar. 2017
• To a young listener, the belligerent scherzo or the supremely peppy and vigorous final movement may have the most appeal.
  — Daniel Gelernter, National Review, 2 Nov. 2019
• No matter: All are equally done in by the final scene, a bonkers scherzo in which the quasi naturalism is swept away by what is meant to be the joyful surrealism of children’s theater.
  — Jesse Green, New York Times, 13 Sep. 2017
• The crucial woodwind solos of the scherzo and third movement brought superb teamwork from the principals, with molten brass and incisive percussion to match.
  — John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 4 May 2018
• The scherzo bristled with a kind of angular ferocity, at once robust and tender.
  — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 16 Mar. 2018
• Noseda has a particular way with Beethoven: fresh and helium-light and so fleet that the strings almost floated offstage in the headlong blink-and-you’ll-miss-it passagework of the trio section of the third-movement scherzo.
  — Anne Midgette, Washington Post, 28 July 2019
• At times, his interpretive focus felt somewhat blurry and the trio section of the scherzo was taken at an awkwardly slow tempo.
  — Jeremy Eichler, BostonGlobe.com, 10 Feb. 2023
• The third movement scherzo is apocalyptic; crashing, thunderous chords are used as a merciless refrain in a danse macabre.
  — San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 Apr. 2022
• While Bruckner did have a certain affection for the flute (its shivering excitement in the trio section of the Ninth’s scherzo is one example), most of his wind melodies are generically windy.
  — Russell Platt, The New Yorker, 3 Feb. 2017
• Only in the tricky scherzo did orchestral coordination slip slightly and briefly.
  — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 31 Oct. 2020
• There was no doubting the scherzo’s rhythmic buoyancy, Masur and friends conjuring its high spirits with vigor and clarity.
  — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 22 Oct. 2019
• The opening section recalls the chromatic yet tonal music of Schoenberg and Zemlinsky 40 years prior but is followed by a dissonant scherzo.
  — San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Nov. 2021
• However, the order of those movements doesn’t follow the classical model of fast sonata form followed by a slow movement, a dance movement (usually a minuet or scherzo), and a fast sonata or rondo finale.
  — Jessica Rudman, courant.com, 13 Oct. 2019
• The second of two great septuagenarian pianists passing through New York this week brings with him an all-Chopin program, featuring two sets of nocturnes, a couple of ballades, a scherzo, a berceuse and the third of the composer’s sonatas.
  — David Allen, New York Times, 18 May 2017

Last Updated: 17 Jul 2024