# Beethoven's Little Musical "Joke"



## Wolkenlaufer (Mar 13, 2018)

Default Beethoven's Little Musical "Joke"?
Hello again.

In the tune Für Elise, there are three repetitions of the introduction, right? Then comes what? Y'all will have to help me with this. When I played rock drums we used to call it the bridge, but I don't think that's the correct term here.

Back to what I think is The Maestro's "joke". After the bridge, there's still another change and within that change is a place where he goes off-key for just one note. Can you hear it? I always wonder if he put it there to see if anyone was paying attention?

In my introduction I mentioned that I fancy myself a "Beethoven Scholar", but what I meant by that was I can speak of the life of my beloved composer all day long, but I don't know how to interpret the different changes. I know a few like allegro, rondo and recitativ. But what I am hearing measure for measure I find difficult to identify.

Do you know of any other "jokes" he may have played on the audience, and can you help me with a link other than the musical dictionary?

Thanks

W


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Is this a troll post on the Classical Music boards?


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Don't really know what you mean here, but as far as I know, Beethoven put so many jokes in his music that entire books can be written about it.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

> Do you know of any other "jokes" he may have played on the audience, and can you help me with a link other than the musical dictionary?


'
See brianvds answer, more jokes you can find in Mozart's'"naughty" songs.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Beethoven was one of the funniest composers who ever lived -- but you just have to get there by listening to him widely, and smiling when it seems appropriate.


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## Wolkenlaufer (Mar 13, 2018)

Ah! I was expecting to be accused of that by someone eventually. Too bad it had to be a "Senior Member".


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Agree with Mark and Brian. Along with the well known heroic and tragic works, Beethoven also wrote many that are comedies from beginning to end. _Für Elise_ isn't one of them.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Agree with Mark and Brian. Along with the well known heroic and tragic works, Beethoven also wrote many that are comedies from beginning to end. _Für Elise_ isn't one of them.


And even the heroic works contain their share of his trademark brusque humor.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

Beethoven's funniest joke is the 'mistaken' early entry of the horn in the first movement of the Eroica Symphony. It always creases me up.


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## pokeefe0001 (Jan 15, 2017)

Beethoven seemed to love "wrong entrance" jokes. The "wrong" trumpet entrance in the 3rd movement of his 8th symphony always makes me laugh. But the whole movement is sort of a joke as is made clear in Beethoven's canon to Maelzel:


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Speaking of the 8th Symphony, the first movement employs the same joke as Haydn's "Joke" Quartet (Op. 33, No. 2): the main theme consists of two 4-bar phrases, and throughout the movement the first half of phrase 1 is always followed by the second half, to the point where we're already humming the second half every time we hear the first half; thus when Beethoven ends the movement with the first half, using it as a final cadence rather than as an introductory gesture, we're momentarily tricked into hearing the movement as "unfinished." Haydn does exactly the same thing in the finale of the Joke Quartet.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Sorry, but I wasn't able to hear the place mentioned in the OP where the music goes "off-key" for just one note. But Beethoven could indeed be the wittiest of composers, my favorite being the tremendous witty and philosophical humor found in his 8th Symphony.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Try the "Rage Over A Lost Penny." Thanks to Wikipedia for this: 

"Robert Schumann wrote of the work, 'It would be difficult to find anything merrier than this whim... It is the most amiable, harmless anger, similar to that felt when one cannot pull a shoe from off the foot.'

Schumann said this "citing the work as an instance of Beethoven's earthliness against those fixated upon a transcendental image of the composer."


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