![chopin scherzo 2 in b flat minor chopin scherzo 2 in b flat minor](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/817Iq9cUuuL._SS500_.jpg)
In this Scherzo, too, the trio transports us into what seems like another world, not just into a new tonal sphere (F major bars 265–276). The second complement to the opening theme, wandering through different keys, brings music that rumbles vigorously along, growing in power and strength with every bar (bars 65–79).
![chopin scherzo 2 in b flat minor chopin scherzo 2 in b flat minor](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3XxIu_DkQ3g/maxresdefault.jpg)
It appears like a bolt of lightning – and then vanishes (bars 49–57(58)). It is in D flat major that the first of the two complements to the Scherzo’s opening theme proceeds.
![chopin scherzo 2 in b flat minor chopin scherzo 2 in b flat minor](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0RCfNiP0-GM/mqdefault.jpg)
The work’s finale is played out not in B flat minor, but in the relative key of D flat major. The dynamism of this work prevented Chopin from closing the Scherzo in its own, opening key. It is unfurled with such force, with such an emotional charge, as if it were about to break through that framework and fall from the tracks along which it is travelling. In this instance, however, the initial structure forms merely the general framework it is filled with music that unfolds in accordance with the laws of a peculiar drama, not form. It could also be seen as possessing the form of a scherzo with trio. The second Scherzo, beginning in B flat minor, possesses, like the first, a reprise structure. The opening gesture of the new scherzo might be termed Beethovenian, though with the opening chords of Chopin’s first Scherzo in B minor in one’s ears, one might also say that it is already a Chopinian gesture. It manifested itself à la Janus, with two faces: the deep-felt lyricism of the Nocturnes, Op. 27 and the concentrated drama of the Scherzo in B flat minor. The new style, all Chopin’s own, which might be called a specifically Chopinian dynamic romanticism, not only revealed itself, but established itself.
![chopin scherzo 2 in b flat minor chopin scherzo 2 in b flat minor](https://musescore.com/static/musescore/scoredata/g/5c405fdb324377e49c887553a94fd783b2da7b77/score_0.png)
This time, the farewell to virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake proved final. This time, however, it was not so short-lived and did not give way to a return of the style brillant, as several years previously. But this time the question has been answered-not with scorn but with complete accord, and the two hurtle together towards the scherzo’s triumphant conclusion.The second explosion of romanticism came at the turn of 1836. The coda is superbly written and conceived, for now the questioning phrase returns in an altered form followed by the answer. Here the music becomes increasingly agitated before reaching an impassioned climax and a return to the opening subject. And on another occasion: ‘It must be a charnel house.’ There follows one of Chopin’s most inspired lyrical themes (in D flat major, as is the majority of the scherzo) before a chorale-like central section. Wilhelm von Lenz, who studied the work with Chopin, reported that for the composer, ‘it was never questioning enough, never piano enough, never vaulted ( tombé) enough, never important enough’. The B flat minor scherzo, the most popular of the four, opens with a striking phrase which has been aptly cited as an instance of scorn in music: a timid question followed by a forceful put-down. The quartet of independent works he composed with this title between 18 has little to do with the earlier scherzos of Beethoven and Mendelssohn or with the derivation of the word ‘scherzo’ (meaning ‘joke’ or ‘jest’), although Chopin does preserve the A-B-A structure of the minuet and trio, the scherzo’s musical antecedent. The scherzo is another form extended and redefined by Chopin. The Scherzo No 2 in B flat minor, Op 31, was written and published in the same year as Chopin wrote the ‘Funeral March’ from his Piano Sonata No 2 in B flat minor, Op 35.