Just under nine minutes in length, Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch's Scherzo Fantasque is a short tour de force for solo piano and orchestra, pure and simple. It is unusually showy and diversionary for such a sober and thoughtful composer. The work stands in stark contrast to Bloch's massive Concerto Symphonique, also for piano and orchestra, written about three years earlier. Fascinating rhythmic shifts and flashes of tonal color mark the first section. Although Bloch is primarily noted for his use of traditional Hebraic and Jewish melodies, hints of this are not heard until the contrasting slow middle section, first stated in the exotic-sounding English horn. A vigorous return of the beginning and recapitulation ensue characterized by a vivid use of instrumentation. A blistering coda brings this exhilarating finale to a close. As evident in this work, Bloch maintained a more conventionally Neo-Romantic voice, even as some of his more prominent students such Roger Sessions (1896-1985) turned to the serial techniques (use of designated series of pitches or a tone row) of academia.

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