Lecture 6, Question 2: Humor!

[Jill_Curtis Institute]

Op. 10, No. 2 is a great showcase for Beethoven’s humor, which generally springs from his delight in confounding the listener’s expectations. Is humor a critical aspect of the music of other composers? And if so, is it always rooted in the same place as Beethoven’s humor, or are there other kinds of musical jokes?

[mayo...@gmail.com]

Yes.

[paulba...@gmail.com]

Humor is an aspect on the spectrum of emotion that pervades music. Various composers leverage humor to a greater or lesser extent however, the way in which Beethoven shares his particular brand of humor using wit, innovation and virtuosity represents high artistic mastery especially given his point in history and circumstance. A more contemporary master of this technique in composition is Frank Zappa.

[andrew...@gmail.com]

I thought of Ives, Satie, and Prokofiev. Humor was a significant aspect of many of their pieces; however, each was different than Beethoven. Ives occasionally scored parts that included wrong notes; His Country Band March is an example. Satie wrote a piano sonata that seems innocent on one listen, but the score is hilarious. Musicologists often use the term "grotesque" to describe Prokofiev's humor. Of course, there are many others...

[samanth...@gmail.com]

Well the most famous example of Beethoven's humour (or maybe his braggadocio) is the story of the competition between him and Steibelt. Apparently defeated by Steibelt's cello concerto, Beethoven grabbed the cello part, put it upside down on the harpsichord and proceeded to improvise with great virtuosity, causing such shame to Steibelt that he had to leave the country.
The upside down cello theme (just to ram the point home, I guess) is that funny sparse opening to the last mov. of the Eroica.
Perhaps that's not humour, so much as bloody-mindedness. :) Gotta love it though.

[samanth...@gmail.com]

Haydn's music was full of jokes too, of the sort where the listeners expectations were continually foiled, but other more obvious humour, such as the Surprise Symphony and The "Farewell" Symphony where the orchestra leaves in dribs and drabs while the last movement is being played. He also wrote a Capriccio based on a folk song about castrating a pig! I guess a Capriccio, by its nature is supposed to be humorous.

As a student of Haydn's I suppose Beethoven may have inherited, if not his sense of humour, the license to be humorous, in music from Haydn.

The tricky thing, when one is just struggling with the notes in an amateur fashion, is to convey the humour!

[elva.g...@gmail.com]

Thanks for writing about these other musicians. I especially related to what you said about Ives. He often laid one theme on top of another. His father was a big influence on him and I learned in the String Quartet put on by the Curtis Institute and Coursera that his father would divide his band and put one on each side of the city marching toward each other, playing different music.

[gza...@gmail.com]

In the course “Write Like Mozart”, Angela K Baxter asked this question:
“From a compositional perspective, does anyone have any thoughts on Mozart's musical joke, K522? http://youtu.be/wFPoRmsiFzc
Watch out for the end of the last movement, it's a doozy.”


What I answered could be mentioned here too:
“I've read that Mozart is mocking the bad composers of his time in that piece of music.

All I'm going to write here is just my personal opinion.

As I started listening to it right now, I started laughing because instead of a smooth development of the feelings expressed (and analyzed deeply), you hear a clumsy development with melodies that move, stop abruptly, and then continue moving again without any idea of where they're heading. Many times the harmony is full of dissonances. The feelings expressed do not evolve in a reasonable manner. Mozart seems to be ridiculizing the work of a composer that has no objectives in mind when composing music and also doesn't have a clue of what he's doing; but it's expressed in a very funny way.

The interesting thing is that despite the fact that it's a composition filled with ridiculizations of a bad composition, "A Musical Joke" is somehow very beautiful music. Only a genius like Mozart can do this. There's a rusty dissonance throughout the work, but even that is beautiful.


Probably part of Mozart's statement in this mockery could be:
1. When answering a musical phrase, don't over do it (or under do it); justify it. Look for an equilibrium.
2. Feelings expressed in music should evolve fluidly; they cannot simply appear and disappear as if by magic.
3. Do not leave ideas unfinished (and be creative).
4. Musical phrases should be as short or long as needed. Justify their length.
5. Consonances are preferred over dissonances (in this historic time).
6. Melodies lead someplace. First think of where you want your melody to go (define your objective) and after that find a creative way to get there.
7. Have an overall idea of your intentions in the composition

A few observations:
The beginning could have been a good idea, but the parts don't fit smoothly against each other. When you think about what feelings are being expressed, it's such a poor expression that it's hilarious.

In 0:03 the viola and the basso support the melody too late creating a double rise in the melody that's kind of clumsy and does not make sense (in my opinion, this is crucial to the mockery of the beginning).

In 0:10 the music answers in an extremely happy and fast manner (unjustified) and ends in 0:15 with the same clumsy and unrelated motive of the beginning.

In 0:16 the music starts fine but there's nothing before to justify it.

The melody in 5:23 probably ridiculizes a melody that should have simply been scratched out......It's horrible!! It's a development of a theme, but very dissonant. It sounds as if it's describing something shrinking, when a melody should express something beautiful or interesting.

The melody in 6:41 is long and fluid but it's just moving in the scale without expressing anything and it ends up abruptly. I have no idea about what it's trying to describe, and as soon as it ends it starts all over again (identical) and I still have no idea what it's trying to describe.

Although the melody in the beginning of the fourth movement is indeed very beautiful, in 16:06, (one of my favorite all-time-themes), the harmonies are kind of dissonant.

The sound of the instrument in 16:53. and in 18:54 is probably mockery too. How can this contribute positively to the expression of feelings in the music? Normally you see this in an exciting part of the music, but here it's in a place that's not that exciting and it sound very dissonant.

The last three dissonant chords are also a mockery, but again, if you listen to them carefully, they are beautiful.

Many more things can be said, but in general it's still a fantastic composition, despite the mockery. This is deffinitelly the work of a genius.”

[jud...@aol.com]

Beethoven's false endings are very funny. Like a musical hyperbole, they go to extremes in suggesting that the piece is over - and it isn't.

I should say that a lot of the humor in music is between the composer and the performer - whether through the execution of an impossible chord or holding notes over intervals that are not possible with the human hand or marking the movement Adagio and cramming each bar with 64th notes, 128 notes, etc. Only one confounded by such demands can appreciate the musical message.

[gersho...@gmail.com]

Maybe Opus 10 No 2 was composed at a time in Beethoven's life when he felt that he was being expected to you produce a certain genre of music,and the patron to whom this piece was dedicated shared these feelings with him,and would appreciate this little diversion from the norm.

[clsn...@gmail.com]

What is your favorite piece of humorous music? Mine in Shostakovich's Polka from the Age of Gold ballet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28BZGTi5yX0

This piece just "sounds" light--a catchy, little up-beat melody with lots of dissonance.

[kmus...@gullotta.it]

Mozart è un autore che fa ricorso all’umorismo, ma in maniera totalmente diversa rispetto a Beethoven in quanto il suo è un modo per prendere le distanze dal dramma esistenziale. La musica di Mozart percorre sempre l’orlo del baratro ma, per scongiurare la paura delle paure (la morte), gioca con la semplicità e la leggerezza che la caratterizza.

[wrob...@gmail.com]

Mimicry, of sounds made by people, animals and anything that makes noise, is one of the most direct forms of musical humor.

[Vivien Naomi Lee]

I don't think I know enough about other composers to make such a comment but I suppose the use of interacting melodies would be a form of musical joke. Like how there could be a few voices interacting with each other, sometimes quarreling, bantering and sometimes in unison. Much like an instrumental musical.

[Esther Hadassa]

Can't help but think of the lectures on humour in music by Bernstein .....
Leonard Bernstein: Young People's Concerts | Humor in Music (Part 1 of 4)
Leonard Bernstein: Young People's Concerts | Humor in Music (Part 2 of 4)
Leonard Bernstein: Young People's Concerts | Humor in Music (Part 3 of 4)
Leonard Bernstein: Young People's Concerts | Humor in Music (Part 4 of 4)

Btw, Bernstein is really hammering home that one word: 'INCONGRUOUS' ... which made me giggle quite a bit in the end.

[Esther Hadassa]

Mimicry is often considered to be humour.
One of the best probably is Camille Saint-Saëns and his Carnaval des Animaux ..... and how pianists ended up in that collection of animals, well ... I'll leave that up to your thinking.

[Esther Hadassa]

This one might be called humour too ...
... or is it comedy?

[Shannon Thomas]

I'm sure humor plays a big part in the music of composers other than Beethoven. Unfortunately, I don't know the music of many classical era/genre composers well enough to give any specific examples. One non-classical composer that incorporates a lot of humor into his work is Ron Mael of the band Sparks. His humor mostly shows itself in dry and ironic lyrics, but also in combinations of music and lyrics that seem incongruous, such as the song "Suburban Homeboy." 

[arthur Geltzer]

One cannot escape the humor Mozart's Don Giovanni. But here it has a meaning beyond it cleverness. Mozart is saying something serious about the mores of the time and the class system. And this humor could have application to the present situation in America. This does not deter from a musician finding humor in Beethoven's Sonatas and the Professor being able to step back from his very  careful analysis and expert rendition of the Beethoven ouvre to have fun.    

[christianity...@gmail.com]

I said in a post somewhere that the exquisite musical jokes in the first movement of op 54 were unprecedented. I see now that Op 10 no 2 foreshadows them remarkably.

[kristinoh...@gmail.com]

The humour in the music here seems less obvious than present-day musical humour. I suppose, like most things back then, subtlety and delicacy were considered part of the art.
As I mentioned in this week's first question, despite the lecture, I really wasn't expecting the third movement of Op. 10, No. 2. While listening, I thought the piece surely over after the second! I supposed it is humourous in that it is unexpected and really makes you smile at the image of Beethoven's (or whichever pianists) fingers just flying over the keys just when you thought they could rest!

[Dan Cicala]

I have more of a question than an answer.  I've felt unconvinced of many of the instances of humor discussed so far in the class.  We seem at danger of a sort of confirmation bias: Beethoven performed a lot of experiments, and the successes are evidence of his iconoclastic stature and the ones that don't work as well we say are intentional jokes that serve as proof of his humor.  Maybe sonata #6 was a sincere attempt to play with the listener's expectations at each of the beginnings of the exposition (with an unorthodox introduction), development (by making variations on the final cadence of the exposition rather than the themes), and recapitulation (by deceptively resolving to the submediant before finding the tonic), and the failure of this sincere attempt is what makes us laugh.

I know these are brief lectures so there's too limited time to get into a musicological debate about the intention behind every work, but I'd be very interested if there's more support for this.

I feel bad that my last two responses are critiques of Mr Biss' lectures because I've absolutely loved the class so far.  Just one of those things where I'm most inspired to respond when there's something to argue with, whereas I've mostly just been snapping my fingers all Beat-like right along with the majority of these lectures :)

[womanwithabook]

Humor is always about confounding expectations, that's why jokes are not funny once you already heard their point. This particular manner of establishing a convention and then breaking requires a particularly strong convention and rose to popularity again in neoclassicism, particularly in Prokofiev's works (for example classical symphony: ). Another way of confounding the expectation is to juxtapose two (or more) unreconcilable materials like in Chopin's Scherzo in Bb, op. 31/2. Yet another is to establish a theme with a certain character then parodying it into a completely different character like in Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony or in Mahler's Symphony no. 1 (https://youtu.be/5N7TlTJcqCo?t=1m54s). Or symply to use material that is seen as unfit (like Schwitters' Ursonate or many less drastic examples).

[Ian Lipke]

Insufficient musical knowledge to answer.

[Cathy L]

Mendelssohn in the last movement of the string quartet Op 44 No. 33 is a full Mozart Opera finale with the man asking for the lady's hand and after a couple of times she says yes and he becomes ecstatic leading to a full sextet of voices offering jubilation and congratulations.

Another example is the humor in program music like Strauss Til Eulenspiel when Til after all his pranks dies and the notes of the Eb clarinet depicts him rising up to heaven and not quite making it sliding back down to hell where he belongs. 

Also enjoy Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite where the concertmaster gets to play a solo imitating the braying of a burro.  Yes, I had the opportunity to play that part -- one time a beautiful tone is not required LOL!

[ragna...@gmail.com]

In the '50s, there were 3 annual Hoffnung Festivals devoted to musical humor, with incongruencies like Dennis Brain playing a Leopold Mozart concerto on a garden hose, a delicate Chopin piece played by a tuba quartet, and big orchestral pieces by Tchaikovsky played by recorders, with a cap gun for the cannons of the 1812 overture. The funniest to me was an opera, The Tales of Hoffnung, that was a mélange of snippets from famous operas. Highlights are the dance of the 7 veils, a competition of serenaders, and a triumphal march that amalgamates the March from Die Meistersinger, the triumphal march from Aida, and the torreodor aria from Carmen. The first time I heard it, I laughed so hard that I injured myself. Very highly recommended. The Abduction of Figaro by Peter Schickele is wonderful, especially the ballet near the end. Almost forgot; Shostakovich 9th symphony is a spoof.

[robertg...@gmail.com]

Well, in a nutshell, it depends on your needs. For me personally, I do not listen or play much music that contains humor. It was, and probably is still, not my concern. I do need it sometimes, but I prefer what Mr. Biss called 'lofty'. This Sonata is written after the emotionally draining Op. 10 No. 1. Perhaps we could think the second F Major sonata of Op. 10 is a bit of release from the tension of C Minor. 

[Gegege no Kitarou]

When talking about humour in other composers, I immediately thought of Haydn- his Surprise Symphony is one of the humorous works, where the first joke appears in the first minute or so. I think different composers have their own sense of humour, therefore using humour in different places of the music. 

I'm not so sure about this composer, but I feel like Chopin's Wrong Note etude (op.25 no.5) resembled some kind of humour. The grace notes and the use of chords (which were purposefully meant to 'clash') made it a little humorous... although Chopin did not use false starts/endings to surprise the audience like Beethoven in this piece. 

On Monday, 1 June 2015 at 09:27:33 UTC+10 Jill_Curtis Institute wrote:

Op. 10, No. 2 is a great showcase for Beethoven’s humor, which generally springs from his delight in confounding the listener’s expectations. Is humor a critical aspect of the music of other composers? And if so, is it always rooted in the same place as Beethoven’s humor, or are there other kinds of musical jokes?

[Dalia King]

I agree. Haydn came to mind immediately. His humor in his "Surprise" Symphony was not the same kind of humor as Beethoven's, although they were similar. Beethoven liked to make his audience look in one direction, then suddenly veer off in another direction. Haydn made his audience get bored looking in one direction, nearly falling asleep, but when he changed directions, the audience was suddenly awake again. That was what he thought was funny. Different composers (and people) have different ideas of humor.

[Holly Anderson]

I have known Haydn to use humour in his works before, however, I find it hard to compare the different humour styles of composers as they are either too similar in a sort of copied sense or they are too distinct to the different composers. Humour is so unique to individual pieces that any attempt to create a formula for making a piece comedic stifles the joke immediately.

[Kitt Petersen]

I am truly enjoying this lecture series.  It is enlightening and Mr. Bliss is sensitive, intelligent, funny and has composed this lecture series truly uniquely. I am learning and having a wonderful time. Thank you.

Would like to know if Mr. Bliss likes Bob Dylan?

[Anita Fetsch Felix]

Yes, many composers use humor as a musical element. Humor tends to be intertwined with high intellect, so it's not surprising to find it in such a challenging art form as composition. Haydn, Mozart, Fritz Kreisler immediately come to mind, but I find Shostakovich stands out as using humor in a way that is not light-hearted.  His music sounds at times like searing, sarcastic humor as deflection against pain, a way to resist  authority and fear that came from living during oppression and a war. The humor seems bitter, and defiant, which I think it is rooted less in fun, and more in trying to find a way to endure psychologically.