Word of the Day for 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.

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