From our Repertoire is a blog category featuring knowledgeable commentary on works from our diverse catalogues. We will introduce to you on a regular basis to not only the best-known compositions but also to niche works that we think deserve a little more attention.

This time: Bartók's Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra op. 2.


If Bartók had called it a concerto, who knows? It might well have become one of his most popular compositions. At half an hour it is certainly one of the longest of all his concertante works; but no, this is, as the title states, a pure scherzo. 

The full title, "Scherzo Burlesque", promises a showpiece – and that is what we get. What it does not reveal is the music’s ambitious scale. Invigorating and full of energy, the four continuous sections (they are not movements as such) comprise an Introduction followed by the traditional Scherzo, Trio and Scherzo da capo, all magnified through a wealth of variety and invention.

The work’s length gives Bartók time to dance down some engaging melodic byways. The tuneful Introduzione, almost a rhapsody by itself, concludes with one of his sweetest inspirations as the first violin joins the piano in an ecstatic duet. The Scherzo proper is filled with engaging asides such as a charming minuet-like motif and a passage of birdsong. The reflective Trio, marked Andante, allows Bartók to pause for five minutes in nocturnal mood before he launches into a finale of vibrant carnival colours.

Why, after a catastrophic first rehearsal, did Bartók withdraw the Scherzo altogether during his lifetime? He was young and ambitious at the time, so perhaps he feared contemporary audiences might not take seriously a composer who could orchestrate such an entertaining musical circus. Yet in later life he was always ready to put his skills to such use, and indeed there are tutti passages in the Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra that look forward almost forty years to the equally accessible Concerto for Orchestra.


Béla Bartók: Scherzo for Piano and Orchestra op. 2
4(III.anche picc., IV=picc.), 3(III=c.i.), 4(IV. in mi bemolle), 4(IV=cfg.) - 4,2,3,1 - timp., batt. - 2 arpe - archi
Duration: 28'


- Mark Valencia

Mark Valencia is a freelance writer on music and theatre as well as Opera Editor at Whatsonstage.com, the UK's leading theatre website. He has been writing about music for more than three decades and contributes articles, reviews and translations to a variety of print and online publications.