I find at times—­as my mood changes—­something almost repellant in the B minor Scherzo.  It does not present the frank physiognomy of the second Scherzo, op. 31, in B flat minor.  Ehlert cries that it was composed in a blessed hour, although de Lenz quotes Chopin as saying of the opening, “It must be a charnel house.”  The defiant challenge of the beginning has no savor of the scorn and drastic mockery of its fore-runner.  We are conscious that tragedy impends, that after the prologue may follow fast catastrophe.  Yet it is not feared with all the portentous thunder of its index.  Nor are we deceived.  A melody of winning distinction unrolls before us.  It has a noble tone, is of a noble type.  Without relaxing pace it passes and drops like a thunderbolt into the bowels of the earth.  Again the story is told, and tarrying not at all we are led to a most delectable spot in the key of A major.  This trio is marked by genius.  Can anything be more bewitching than the episode in C sharp minor merging into E major, with the overflow at the close?  The fantasy is notable for variety of tonality, freedom in rhythmical incidents and genuine power.  The coda is dizzy and overwhelming.  For Schumann this Scherzo is Byronic in tenderness and boldness.  Karasowski speaks of its Shakespearian humor, and indeed it is a very human and lovable piece of art.  It holds richer, warmer, redder blood than the other three and like the A flat Ballade, is beloved of the public.  But then it is easier to understand.

Opus 39, the third Scherzo in C sharp minor, was composed or finished at Majorca and is the most dramatic of the set.  I confess to see no littleness in the polished phrases, though irony lurks in its bars and there is fever in its glance—­a glance full of enigmatic and luring scorn.  I heartily agree with Hadow, who finds the work clear cut and of exact balance.  And noting that Chopin founded whole paragraphs “either on a single phrase repeated in similar shapes or on two phrases in alternation”—­a primitive practice in Polish folksongs—­he asserts that “Beethoven does not attain the lucidity of his style by such parallelism of phraseology,” but admits that Chopin’s methods made for “clearness and precision...may be regarded as characteristic of the national manner.”  A thoroughly personal characteristic too.

There is virile clangor in the firmly struck octaves of the opening pages.  No hesitating, morbid view of life, but rank, harsh assertiveness, not untinged with splenetic anger.  The chorale of the trio is admirably devised and carried out.  Its piety is a bit of liturgical make-believe.  The contrasts here are most artistic—­sonorous harmonies set off by broken chords that deliciously tinkle.  There is a coda of frenetic movement and the end is in major, a surprising conclusion when considering all that has gone before.  Never to become the property of the profane, the C sharp minor Scherzo, notwithstanding its marked asperities and agitated moments, is a great work of art.  Without the inner freedom of its predecessor, it is more sober and self-contained than the B minor Scherzo.