Scherzo is an Italian word meaning ' jest ' or ' joke ', and in a piece of music in sonata or symphony form the scherzo is usually the lightest of its movements. It was Beethoven who substituted the scherzo for the classical minuet which, up to his time, usually formed the third movement of a work in sonata style. Even Haydn's minuet movements had got further away from the dance form and anticipated the scherzo of Beethoven. The present series of programmes will show the development of the scherzo from its beginning, by way of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, and Berlioz, up to its latest manifestations-Dukas's ' L'Apprenti sorcier ' and the scherzo movements of the symphonies of Vaughan Williams and William Walton.