A Study On Chopin's Scherzo

Chopin's contribution to the music genre is unique. His four independent scherzos are the development and innovation on the genre of traditional scherzo. Among them, very few are jocosity-character work, and all of the scherzos are large-scale dramatic works. It can be said that scherzo reached the peak by Chopin. Meanwhile, scherzo can be regarded as one important and special side of Chopin's works. By reviewing the style and characteristics of scherzo, the overall style of Chopin's language of music could be understood more integrality.In the first chapter, Introduction, the author introduces the historical development of scherzo, reviews the evolutionary process of the style of scherzo. And then, starts from Chopin's scherzos, the author introduces the historical background and overall style and characteristics of Chopin's scherzos.In the second chapter, Musical element analysis, the author starts with melody. On the one hand, the author analyzes the overall characteristic of the melody of Chopin's scherzos; On the other hand, the author analyzes development technique of the melodic in Chopin's scherzos. And then, starting with harmony, the author analyzes several main harmonic progression characteristics of Chopin's scherzos. By analyzing these two music elements, it allows the reader to further understand the overall style and characteristics of melody and harmony in Chopin's scherzos.In the third chapter, Structural analysis, the author starts with " the ternary quality " and "the non-ternary quality", and specifically analyzes the form of the four scherzos, and then analyzes the function of each paragraph from the main theme section to the coda of the four scherzos. Finally the author analyzes the overall structural arrangement of the scherzos. Through such analysis, it allows the reader to have a more thorough understanding on the richness of paragraph's arrangement and multi-explanation of form in Chopin's scherzos.In the fourth chapter, the author utilizes the theory of Musical apperceive analysis , which is established by Leonard B. Meyer, a famous American musical esthetician and theoretician, and then, from the angle of music apperceive, analyzes the third scherzo of Chopin more particularly. Through the analysis, it has confirmed the conclusion made out of the above analysis on musical form. From the angle of sense and sensibility, it allows the reader to have a more thorough understanding on the style and characteristic of Chopin's scherzos.In conclusion, on the basis of predecessor's works, Chopin's scherzos have created its unique style and characteristic of its musical language, and made an important contribution to the development of scherzo.