That Stravinsky's Scherzo in G minor survives at all is a miracle; most of the pieces from his extreme youth were lost with the fall of the Russian Empire. But the Scherzo was found among the scores presented by the estate of Nicolai Ivanovich Richter, a pianist and friend of Stravinsky's youth, to the Soviet government, and it was published in facsimile in 1972. Dated January 1903, the Scherzo is one of the first of Stravinsky's works to survive. Described by Richard Taruskin in his masterly two-volume study Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions as "no more than an exercise in 'schoolmasterly' form," the Scherzo was probably written as an composition assignment for his newfound teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov.

© James Leonard, All Music Guide