The work is a spider-fingered scherzo which translates the concept of ‘Romantic irony’ into a modern tonal language. Mysterious creatures fl it back and forth and run on the spot before breaking off once more into a wild counterpoint of movement in all directions. Intermittently, the music assumes a more concentrated form: on one occasion in a feverish, oscillating plane of trills (an echo of Beethoven's extended trills in his late period?), and again in an expansively soaring song on the violin...