s the term implies, the playful, jocose movement of a
symphony, but in the case of sublime geniuses like Beethoven and
Schumann, who blend profound melancholy with wild humor, the
playfulness is sometimes of a kind which invites us to thoughtfulness
instead of merriment. This is true also of some Russian composers,
whose scherzos have the desperate gayety which speaks from the music
of a sad people whose merrymaking is not a spontaneous expression of
exuberant spirits but a striving after self-forgetfulness. The Scherzo
is the successor of the Minuet, whose rhythm and form served the
composers down to Beethoven. It was he who substituted the Scherzo,
which retains the chief formal characteristics of the courtly old
dance in being in triple time and having a second part called the
Trio. With the change there came an increase in speed, but it ought to
be remembered that the symphonic minuet was quicker than the dance of
the same name. A tendency toward exaggeration, which is patent among
modern conductors, is threatening to rob the symphonic minuet of the
vivacity which gave it its place in the scheme of the symphony. The
entrance of the Trio is marked by the introduction of a new idea (a
second minuet) which is more sententious than the first part, and
sometimes in another key, the commonest change being from minor to
major.

[Sidenote: _The Finale._]

[Sidenote: _Rondo form._]

The final movement, technically the Finale, is another piece of large
dimensions in which the psychological drama which plays through the
four acts of the symphony is brought to a conclusion. Once the purpose
of the Finale was but to bring the symphony to a merry end, but as the
expressive capacity of music has been widened, and mere play with
aesthetic forms has given place to attempts to convey sentiments and
feelings, the purposes of the last movement have been greatly extended
and varied. As a rule the form chosen for the Finale is that called
the Rondo. Borrowed from an artificial verse-form (the French
_Rondeau_), this species of composition illustrates the peculiarity of
that form in the reiteration of a strophe ever and anon after a new
theme or episode has been exploited. In modern society verse, which
has grown out of an ambition to imitate the ingenious form invented by
mediaeval poets, we have the Triolet, which may be said to be a rondeau
in miniature. I choose one of Mr. H.C. Bunner's dainty creations to
illustrate the musical r