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How is scherzando played?
The performer plays in a light, teasing, witty manner, often with crisp, detached articulation and a nimble touch. The word shares its root with scherzo ('joke'), the lively movement type that supplanted the minuet, and it can appear as a standalone character word or attached to a tempo, as in 'Allegretto scherzando'. It signals quick changes of mood, playful accents and a generally good-humoured tone rather than a fixed speed. Performers treat it as an instruction about character and articulation as much as affect.
How does scherzando sound?
The music sounds light, jesting and quick-witted, with a teasing, capricious quality.
In context
Scherzando (also scherzoso) is defined in standard glossaries as 'playfully' and is rooted in the scherzo tradition. The term is broadly applied across the repertoire rather than tied to a single canonical work.