Word of the Day Archive
Monday July 9, 2012
scherzando \skert-SAHN-doh\
, adjective:
Playful; sportive.
A short coda recalls the scherzando music, and the piece concludes with the jazzy harmony.
-- Howard Pollack, John Alden Carpenter
A recapitulation satisfies the sonata principle by partially transposing both of the episodes to the tonic, and to cap off the movement with a tour de force Weber combines the last statement of the refrain with the scherzando theme.
-- R. Larry Todd, Nineteenth-Century Piano Music
Scherzando comes from the Italian word scherzare meaning "to joke." It entered English in the early 1800s.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for scherzando
