# Mozart Was So Clever and Witty



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

My favorite compositions by him (which really is most of them) just scream of such wit; they are so clever and inspire me very much to do better in life. 

I think he wrote some of the catchiest melodies in Classical Music, he is Classical's pop star! 


:tiphat:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I know, I'm preaching to the choir, but isn't it nice to share in our appreciation of this titan of composition?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

In comparison, Beethoven is a drama queen of sorts, but I adore him too.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

And Haydn? .............


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> And Haydn? .............


Second rate to Heir Mozart, he shall forever live in his shadow, even though I love his piano sonatas.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Second rate to Heir Mozart, he shall forever live in his shadow, even though I love his piano sonatas.


How much of Haydn's music do you know?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

ArsMusica said:


> How much of Haydn's music do you know?


I'm mostly joking, but there is truth in that sentiment. I love Haydn, and can tell the difference between his work and Mozart's often. Haydn seems more bold and aggressive where Mozart was elegant and refined.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

But, I don't think Haydn stirs me in the same way Mozart does as the OP states, and it doesn't have to and it's better that it's its own monster rather than imitation.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Just to finish, Bach captures my intellect.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I'm mostly joking, but there is truth in that sentiment. I love Haydn, and can tell the difference between his work and Mozart's often. *Haydn seems more bold and aggressive* where Mozart was elegant and refined.


I agree with that statement in bold. Haydn's music is more Beethovenian than Mozart's.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Not to harp, but


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

there's just about more wit in a single Haydn Minuet


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

than in all of Mozart put together.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

MarkW said:


> there's just about more wit in a single Haydn Minuet


I don't see Haydn as witty and clever like Mozart, I see him as bold and proud, and I enjoy that.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Second rate to Heir Mozart, he shall forever live in his shadow, even though I love his piano sonatas.


I thought we were talking about cleverness and wit.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

MarkW said:


> Not to harp, but


It can't be said enough...


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I thought we were talking about cleverness and wit.


Me too, I'd love to get back to that. Mozart was just so darn clever!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

How many "Mozart is the greatest" threads do we need? They've been multiplying like rabbits.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> How many "Mozart is the greatest" threads do we need? They've been multiplying like rabbits.


I'm not saying he is the greatest, I'm just saying I love his charm, wit and find him very clever in a psychological way. It's so joyous, that it almost feels like the joy brought to a serial killer after achieving his goal. It has that dark brilliance about it that I adore.

Perhaps it makes me feel like I'm finding joy in being mischievous, but in a brilliant way.


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## sharkeysnight (Oct 19, 2017)

Could you post an example?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

sharkeysnight said:


> Could you post an example?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

It almost makes sense because Mozart was a bit mischievous.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

sharkeysnight said:


> Could you post an example?


You might want to look at the end of Act 2 of Figaro, where Figaro is trying to sell the Count a lie, the Count knows he's being lied to, Figaro has difficulty thinking of convincing responses to his questioning, the music reflect their states of mind, then it all gets interrupted for a jolly wedding. It's one of my favourite bits of music. About 1:34 here, my favourite bit is around 1;40 -- a rather good performance by the look of it


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> And Haydn? .............


I too much prefer Mozart to Haydn. Over the past few months I've spent a lot of time listening to Haydn op 33 and the Mozart/Haydn quartets and I just do think that the Mozart is much more my cup of tea, though I'm hard put to explain why. I also much prefer Mozart's keyboard sonatas to Haydn's, I can't explain it. I don't know the symphonies of either composer well enough to comment, except to say that I prefer what I've heard of Mozart's!


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I too much prefer Mozart to Haydn. Over the past few months I've spent a lot of time listening to Haydn op 33 and the Mozart/Haydn quartets and I just do think that the Mozart is much more my cup of tea, though I'm hard put to explain why. I also much prefer Mozart's keyboard sonatas to Haydn's, I can't explain it.


They're different, I find both cycles of Sonatas sophisticated in different ways.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I'm sure that the keyboard music has lots of interesting ideas in there, and some lovely music too. It's just that Mozart seems to provide me with more of what I'm looking for from culture -- but it's too hard to explain and anyway it's probably a personal thing. I think part of what I'm saying is that, just as matter of fact, my imagination has not been stimulated and engaged by Haydn while it has by Mozart. Not very interesting really.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Just to finish, Bach captures my intellect.


I don't know, even Bach has his limits.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I'm sure that the keyboard music has lots of interesting ideas in there, and some lovely music too. It's just that Mozart seems to provide me with more of what I'm looking for from culture -- but it's too hard to explain and anyway it's probably a personal thing. I think part of what I'm saying is that, just as matter of fact, my imagination has not been stimulated and engaged by Haydn while it has by Mozart. Not very interesting really.


I too prefer Mozart's keyboard music, but it could be because I've heard more of it and more often. I heard Haydn's quartets very early on and it was years before I listened to Mozart's best contributions to that literature. I quickly learned to appreciate the sheer quality of Mozart's later quartets, but I still turn to Haydn's quartets more often. They are masterpieces and mean a lot to me because they have been the musical background to much activity in my life.

There are Haydn keyboard sonatas I know quite well, like no.43 (Hob XVI:28) in E-flat major.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Wit and cleverness are ideas that often occur to me while listening to Haydn, but not so much while listening to Mozart. I have never laughed in surprise and delight, or probably even chuckled, while listening to a Mozart quartet, symphony, or sonata. The operatic comedies, of course, don't count in this comparison; if I laugh at those it will be at the stage business more than the music. For hilarious operatic music, there's Rossini.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Wit and cleverness are ideas that often occur to me while listening to Haydn, but not so much while listening to Mozart. I have never laughed in surprise and delight, or probably even chuckled, while listening to a Mozart quartet, symphony, or sonata. The operatic comedies, of course, don't count in this comparison; if I laugh at those it will be at the stage business more than the music. For hilarious operatic music, there's Rossini.


It's ok to have different opinions, music isn't a competition. If Haydn is your man, then enjoy!


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Wit and cleverness are ideas that often occur to me while listening to Haydn, but not so much while listening to Mozart. I have never laughed in surprise and delight, or probably even chuckled, while listening to a Mozart quartet, symphony, or sonata. The operatic comedies, of course, don't count in this comparison; if I laugh at those it will be at the stage business more than the music. For hilarious operatic music, there's Rossini.


Mozart is my favorite composer, but I absolutely agree with this. "Wit and cleverness" are perhaps the most defining and unique characteristics of Haydn, so much so that, after listening to him, I always feel a void of those qualities listening to other composers. I guess I find Mozart witty and clever in his own way, but nowhere to the extent that Haydn is.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Wit and cleverness are ideas that often occur to me while listening to Haydn, but not so much while listening to Mozart. I have never laughed in surprise and delight, or probably even chuckled, while listening to a Mozart quartet, symphony, or sonata. The operatic comedies, of course, don't count in this comparison; if I laugh at those it will be at the stage business more than the music. For hilarious operatic music, there's Rossini.


Inner smile in Mozart, more than audible laugh. Anyway that's what occurred to me just now listening to the variations in K 464.


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## Funny (Nov 30, 2013)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Mozart is my favorite composer, but I absolutely agree with this. "Wit and cleverness" are perhaps the most defining and unique characteristics of Haydn, so much so that, after listening to him, I always feel a void of those qualities listening to other composers. I guess I find Mozart witty and clever in his own way, but nowhere to the extent that Haydn is.


Yeah, like Woodduck I have certainly laughed out loud at some of Haydn's musical gestures, but never at Mozart's. I don't know if it's so much a question of Haydn being "my man," it's just that he's easily the wittier and cleverer composer of the two. You could pick any number of adjectives on which Mozart would best Haydn but these two are exactly what Haydn is renowned for. Could you (OP) cite something and explain what it is about it that you find witty and clever? Maybe it's in the Mozart I haven't listened to, of which there is doubtlessly plenty.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Both marvelous. I do however find Haydn more calculated and planned in his cleverness and wit... that he would enjoy thinking of ways to surprise and delight his listeners, his Surprise Symphony, for instance. With Mozart, I got the impression that it just happened, but his Musical Joke is quite witty and clever. In it, he sets out to break every musical rule in the book... The music is repetitive, the chords are dissonant and the brass is attempting acrobatics that no self-respecting brass section should do. And the ending is pure comedic gold.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I want to say something about Haydn's humour in things like the Surprise symphony -- it's not wit, it's schoolboy humour. It's puerile. Haydn is stupidly childish, he's just drawing attention to himself, he has zero to say about truth, invention and the meaning of life. 

Mozart expresses in his music the wisdom of his inner child. The smiling buddah.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

There is a good example of 'Mozartian joke' described at 2:00


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> I want to say something about Haydn's humour in things like the Surprise symphony -- it's not wit, it's schoolboy humour. It's puerile. Haydn is stupidly childish, he's just drawing attention to himself, he has zero to say about truth, invention and the meaning of life.


This comment just reminds me of the great quote from CS Lewis: "Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

I might also mention the utter silliness of talking about "truth" and "the meaning of life" with an abstract medium like music, and the nonsense of claiming that the "father of the symphony and string quartet," and one of the key developers of the sonata form, lacked invention.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I personally don't consider the Surprise Symphony to be the epitome of Haydn's cleverness. Nevertheless, I also consider the wit in Mozart's A Musical Joke to be infantile and boorish. But that's just me.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

MarkW said:


> I personally don't consider the Surprise Symphony to be the epitome of Haydn's cleverness. Nevertheless, I also consider the wit in Mozart's A Musical Joke to be infantile and boorish. But that's just me.


You can see how the discussion slips from wit to laughter and now your word is cleverness. I expect Haydn was clever, but that's not the point.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> the nonsense of claiming that the "father of the symphony and string quartet," and one of the key developers of the sonata form, lacked invention.


Ah sure, I didn't mean invention like that, I probably shouldn't have used the word. I mean poetic, rather than structural, imagination.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> This comment just reminds me of the great quote from CS Lewis: "Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."


I hope I didn't use "adult" as a term of approval. The opposite of puerile would be something perceptive, wise, that sort of thing.

Do you agree with me that the Haydn's humour is puerile?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

A few people have mentioned or implied now that one of the requirements for music to be "witty" or "clever" is that it makes them laugh out loud. If that were the case for me there'd be very little music I consider clever since I hardly ever laugh out loud when listening to music. In conversation or writing, there are observations others make that strike me as clever or witty but don't necessarily make me laugh and it's the same for me with music. In Mozart's music, the humor is often less slapstick than Haydn's, and defined more by a quicksilver play of ideas, intellectual juggling of dazzling speed and deftness. He was certainly capable of the broad burlesque musical humor as in A Musical Joke(which has multiple jokes in each movement, not just the finale). I like the jokes that come from the transitional/connective sections in Mozart's music, functional, but full of piping energy and almost deadpan earnestness, like the finale of the 23rd quartet where the previously heard descending semiquaver theme becomes 'stuck' in place or the last movement of the E flat piano quartet just before the return of the main theme where the piano and violin attempt to get the last word in:


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Haydn was a musical prankster. His sense of humor made it into many of his pieces. His string quartet in E flat (subtitled 'The Joke') is a great example-there are false endings that play with the expectations of the audience. I consider humor a remarkable and humanizing quality at any age and do not consider it childish but uplifting and admirable. He had to know his audience to get away with it and he was playing with them in an affectionate way. He was clever and witty.






"When Napoleon invaded Vienna in 1809, Haydn was such a respected figure across Europe that two of Napoleon's sentries were put on guard so that he wouldn't have to move in his old age." That respect had allowed him to get away with this pranks.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Mozart was an incredibly clever and witty man even if his sense of humour is course and vulgar. He could write letters in several different languages as a joke and even write them backwards, apparently. One movement of a horn concerto is laced with witticisms and cracks at his friend who was about to play it. Some are unrepeatable! When he combines this with music of a tunefulness and sublimity never equalled, then who couldn't love him?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

What I meant by wit was more mental sharpness in terms of Mozart's musical mind. I see clever and wit as synonyms in this way, though I know other definitions of wit include being quick on your feet in terms of humor.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> I want to say something about Haydn's humour in things like the Surprise symphony -- it's not wit, it's schoolboy humour. It's puerile. Haydn is stupidly childish, he's just drawing attention to himself, he has zero to say about truth, invention and the meaning of life.
> 
> Mozart expresses in his music the wisdom of his inner child. The smiling buddah.


This is stated in a harsher way than I would've put it, but I understand the sentiment, to an extent it mirrors my feelings on the two composers.

Haydn certainly was crafty and inventive though, some have suggested the Surprise Symphony is one of the most important works in the repertoire. I think Beethoven certainly noticed that idea and ran with it.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Personally I find Haydn's music more charming overall, in cleverness and wit, than Mozart's. I don't just mean in a few pranks like in the Surprise Symphony. The way he handles the theme in the woodwinds in the Military Symphony, the string theme in the Bear Symphony Finale, his Piano Concerto 11, etc. With Mozart I feel it is hit or miss, he wrote some beautiful stuff, but also some I find dull and boring. If I was to randomly pick something from their output, I would bet I find more in the Haydn, since he exuded wit and charm.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Actually the joke in The Joke is exactly the sort of humour I had in mind when I said that he's puerile.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> With Mozart I feel it is hit or miss, he wrote some beautiful stuff, but also some I find dull and boring.


I really don't think that even YOU think that the same isn't at least as true of Haydn -- there's a hell of a lot of boring Haydn!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

When people call Haydn "childish" for his humor, I imagine they only _think_ they like him when actually they don't. And if they don't like him, why comment at all? He didn't do it all the time. But humor and goodwill was an essential part of his personality and condemning his humor and lightheartedness of spirit, IMO, really doesn't indicate any fundamental understanding or appreciation of the composer. Whether one likes it or not, it was skillfully done because his audience expected it... Musical jokes are a tradition in music. Beethoven succeeded by creating a number of false endings. Just when you think the piece was over, it came back to rise again and again, until you just didn't know when it was over, and when it was you were still spinning with joy at experiencing it all. Johannes Brahms did some of the same things, but Beethoven like Haydn were masters, and Prokofiev also had false endings in his First Symphony.

The problem with musical jokes is that they're usually only funny or humorous the first time around, but records and CDs hadn't been invented by the 18th century. Haydn's Farewell Symphony No. 45 was also quite clever and witty: "during the final adagio each musician stops playing, snuffs out the candle on his music stand, and leaves in turn, so that at the end, there are just two muted violins left (played by Haydn himself and his concertmaster), and it's a superlative symphony on top of that. Such ideas were fundamental to his nature and music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I think it's a good thing to try and get clearer about what his type of humour is.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> Ah sure, I didn't mean invention like that, I probably shouldn't have used the word. I mean poetic, rather than structural, imagination.


Well, "poetic imagination" is much more vague, but I hear tons of "poetic imagination" in Haydn. Just some examples:












(First movement is a charmer in itself, but that second movement may be the darkest in all of piano trio-dom)








(12:45 for the last one; one of the loveliest, most poetic slow movements in all piano music)



Mandryka said:


> I hope I didn't use "adult" as a term of approval. The opposite of puerile would be something perceptive, wise, that sort of thing.
> 
> Do you agree with me that the Haydn's humour is puerile?


That quote also addressed the wrongness of using "childish" as a term of disapproval. I dare say that humor is often at its best when it's childish and/or child-like. The humor of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope is much more sophisticated than that of, say, Shakespeare or Chaucer, but I dare say the latter two are far more endearing and enduring in their very "puerile" senses of humor than the former two.

Sometimes Haydn's humor is puerile; I mean, he basically inserted a fart joke into a symphony--but, then again, the best joke in all of Chaucer is a very elaborate fart joke as well. However, most of Haydn's humor revolves around playing with the expectations that came with musical form, and some of it is quite sophisticated. The rhythmic ambiguity of the finale of Symphohy 80 is every bit as much a joke as his "Surprise Symphony" or "Joke Quartet" is, and it's far from puerile.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Haydn's Surprise Symphony. (Sorry, there have never been any "fart jokes" that I know of in his symphonies or have ever seen them written about, but he did use humorous and witty double-fortes as a surprise to his delighted audiences. Then he develops the whole idea of loud and soft in this movement):






If anyone was going to write fart jokes in their music, I would have imagined it would be Mozart who was known for his scatological humor. But if either of them ever did write such jokes, someone please post the examples so everybody can judge for themselves.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I'm not sure why the discussion is going like "if a work by Haydn or Mozart is not charming or witty, it's boring and dull" as if their work is all about charm or wit. Maybe that's the way the OP wanted the discussion to go.



Woodduck said:


> How many "Mozart is the greatest" threads do we need? They've been multiplying like rabbits.


In case you haven't noticed the usual sarcasm in Captainnumber36's posts, his intention in creating threads like these is not to praise Mozart. He even said "Mozart is the antithesis of all I stand musically" Mozart Is My Enemy .
It should be obvious now, whenever he says stuff like "Mozart has cleverness", he actually means "Beethoven has something more valuable - emotion" or something to the effect. 
So why don't we just say out loud "Beethoven is by far the greatest god of music who ever lived, far greater than all his predecessors", the kind of conclusion he wants his threads to arrive at. At least that's the kind of impression I get in all his threads that have to do with Mozart, Haydn, Bach.  Mozart Really is the King of Composers I honestly don't care whatever conclusion they arrive at as long as they don't encourage prejudice against classical period music.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Both were similar composers, so we don't really need to achieve a definitive answer here, if there ever really is one, ever.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm not sure why the discussion is going like "if a work by Haydn or Mozart is not charming or witty, it's boring and dull" as if their work is all about charm or wit. Maybe that's the way the OP wanted the discussion to go.
> 
> In case you haven't noticed the usual sarcasm in Captainnumber36's posts, his intention in creating threads like these is not to praise Mozart. He even said "Mozart is the antithesis of all I stand musically" Mozart Is My Enemy .
> It should be obvious now, whenever he says stuff like "Mozart has cleverness", he actually means "Beethoven has something more valuable - emotion" or something to the effect.
> So why don't we just say out loud "Beethoven is by far the greatest god of music who ever lived, far greater than all his predecessors", the kind of conclusion he wants his threads to arrive at. At least that's the kind of impression I get in all his threads that have to do with Mozart, Haydn, Bach.  Mozart Really is the King of Composers I honestly don't care whatever conclusion they arrive at as long as they don't encourage prejudice against classical period music.


No, I'm calming down, but my head was fluctuating a lot for sometime on my stances. I really think Mozart is very clever, Beethoven grabs my heart and Bach my intellect.

Haydn is quite bold and charming to my ears.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> No, I'm calming down, but my head was fluctuating a lot for sometime on my stances. I really think Mozart is very clever, Beethoven grabs my heart and Bach my intellect.
> 
> Haydn is quite bold and charming to my ears.


And these are just overall impressions, really we should break it down work by work b/c a lot of these adjectives are interchangeable between the composers.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Phil loves classical said:


> Personally I find Haydn's music more charming overall, in cleverness and wit, than Mozart's. I don't just mean in a few pranks like in the Surprise Symphony. The way he handles the theme in the woodwinds in the Military Symphony, the string theme in the Bear Symphony Finale, his Piano Concerto 11, etc. With Mozart I feel it is hit or miss, he wrote some beautiful stuff, but also some I find dull and boring. If I was to randomly pick something from their output, I would bet I find more in the Haydn, since he exuded wit and charm.


That's my take on Mozart too. I love a handful of symphonies, piano concertos, string quartets/quintets, piano sonatas but find much of his output boring. Of course, a lot of it has to do with the fact that he wrote a lot of his music before he matured as a composer. His 5 violin concertos are the most boring set of music played on a regular basis by a major composer.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm not sure why the discussion is going like "if a work by Haydn or Mozart is not charming or witty, it's boring and dull" as if their work is all about charm or wit. Maybe that's the way the OP wanted the discussion to go.
> 
> In case you haven't noticed the usual sarcasm in Captainnumber36's posts, his intention in creating threads like these is not to praise Mozart. He even said "Mozart is the antithesis of all I stand musically" Mozart Is My Enemy .
> It should be obvious now, whenever he says stuff like "Mozart has cleverness", he actually means "Beethoven has something more valuable - emotion" or something to the effect.
> So why don't we just say out loud "Beethoven is by far the greatest god of music who ever lived, far greater than all his predecessors", the kind of conclusion he wants his threads to arrive at. At least that's the kind of impression I get in all his threads that have to do with Mozart, Haydn, Bach.  Mozart Really is the King of Composers I honestly don't care whatever conclusion they arrive at as long as they don't encourage prejudice against classical period music.


I'm embarrassed you linked all those past threads from when I was a bit unstable in my life mentally...


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

This performance of Haydn is very charming, I searched it out after Phil mentioned it in his post.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Larkenfield said:


> ...(Sorry, there have never been any "fart jokes" that I know of in his symphonies or have ever seen them written about...)


I believe there's one, a bassoon honk, in #93 2nd movement. But at least FJH didn't write irritating potty-mouth canons like a certain other composer I could name but refrain from doing so out of well-bred social delicacy.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> That quote also addressed the wrongness of using "childish" as a term of disapproval. I dare say that humor is often at its best when it's childish and/or child-like. The humor of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope is much more sophisticated than that of, say, Shakespeare or Chaucer, but I dare say the latter two are far more endearing and enduring in their very "puerile" senses of humor than the former two.
> 
> Sometimes Haydn's humor is puerile; I mean, he basically inserted a fart joke into a symphony--but, then again, the best joke in all of Chaucer is a very elaborate fart joke as well. However, most of Haydn's humor revolves around playing with the expectations that came with musical form, and some of it is quite sophisticated. The rhythmic ambiguity of the finale of Symphony 80 is every bit as much a joke as his "Surprise Symphony" or "Joke Quartet" is, and it's far from puerile.


Yes "adolescent" would have been a better choice of word. And no-one's arguing that Haydn wasn't clever with rhythms etc. What I rarely find is the sort of humane smile that you get so frequently in Mozart - the variations of 464 for example. I know that he Haydn done it, in his own F minor keyboard variations for example, but it's not as ubiquitous as in Mozart. There's something cold about Haydn's music if you ask me, though I can see some of it is fun and clever and easy to access, things like the Bear scherzo. I suppose it all depends what you're looking for from music. The comparison with Canterbury Tales is a good one.

Maybe all your seeing from me is that over many years I've come to appreciate Mozart's late quartets and his keyboard music more and more, and Haydn's later quartets less and less, I have a soft spot for op 20 still. I probably should keep quiet about Haydn's keyboard music and symphonies because in truth I've only explored it in the most superficial way, the music has never captured my imagination.


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## StrangeHocusPocus (Mar 8, 2019)

Cause he put powder in his Wig


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> This performance of Haydn is very charming, I searched it out after Phil mentioned it in his post.


Pletnev does that concerto very well, he made a recording with two piano concertos and it's well worth catching. You may like some of the later piano trios too.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I believe there's one, a bassoon honk, in #93 2nd movement. But at least FJH didn't write irritating potty-mouth canons like a certain other composer I could name but refrain from doing so out of well-bred social delicacy.


Leck mich im arsch.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

trazom said:


> A few people have mentioned or implied now that one of the requirements for music to be "witty" or "clever" is that it makes them laugh out loud. If that were the case for me there'd be very little music I consider clever since I hardly ever laugh out loud when listening to music. In conversation or writing, there are observations others make that strike me as clever or witty but don't necessarily make me laugh and it's the same for me with music. In Mozart's music, the humor is often less slapstick than Haydn's, and defined more by a quicksilver play of ideas, intellectual juggling of dazzling speed and deftness. He was certainly capable of the broad burlesque musical humor as in A Musical Joke(which has multiple jokes in each movement, not just the finale). I like the jokes that come from the transitional/connective sections in Mozart's music, functional, but full of piping energy and almost deadpan earnestness, like the finale of the 23rd quartet where the previously heard descending semiquaver theme becomes 'stuck' in place or the last movement of the E flat piano quartet just before the return of the main theme where the piano and violin attempt to get the last word in:


Me too.

I dont tend to listen to music to laugh. Maybe Haydn is a wittier composer - so what. There are moments of humour in Mozarts music - a lot of playfulness for sure - though I suppose that is a different thing.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> His 5 violin concertos are the most boring set of music played on a regular basis by a major composer.


Oh, like Mozart's 3rd one that was good enough for Dudamel and Hillary Hahn to perform before the Pope? That boring concerto?  Not everything he wrote may have been a masterpiece, but I've never heard boring Mozart except when the music was written by someone else and mistakenly attributed to him or it was a poor performance of something that he did write. The idea that he wrote 5 boring violin concertos IMO never happened. When played well-and they often are by the greatest violinists in the world-they're brilliant, charming, and elegantly graceful... just lovely, though he was still a mere youth when he wrote them. That's how good he was. The 3rd is the gem and probably as iconic of Mozart's genius as anything he ever wrote.

No. 1: 



No. 2: 



No. 3: 



No. 4: 



No. 5: 




"Mozart's violin concertos are never far from the center of any violinist's repertoire. Written while the composer was still a teenager, they can hardly be considered among his deepest music, yet they maintain all the gallant charm and suavity of the period as we hear the boy coming of age, experimenting with forms and growing more harmonically daring and melodically assured."


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It is interesting to discuss humour in music and I think we all understand what is meant but has anyone actually laughed at a "musical joke"? I guess an in-joke (a technical one) for musicians might be a cause for a chuckle the first time it is heard but aren't we overall using the word "joke" as something more metaphorical than real? Humour is something else - it isn't only a matter of jokes - and I find both Mozart's and Haydn's music can be good humoured in a variety of ways. But it is stretching it, I think, to suggest that actual jokes are an important part of how their music works.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> Yes "adolescent" would have been a better choice of word. And no-one's arguing that Haydn wasn't clever with rhythms etc. What I rarely find is the sort of humane smile that you get so frequently in Mozart - the variations of 464 for example. I know that he Haydn done it, in his own F minor keyboard variations for example, but it's not as ubiquitous as in Mozart. There's something cold about Haydn's music if you ask me, though I can see some of it is fun and clever and easy to access, things like the Bear scherzo. I suppose it all depends what you're looking for from music. The comparison with Canterbury Tales is a good one.
> 
> Maybe all your seeing from me is that over many years I've come to appreciate Mozart's late quartets and his keyboard music more and more, and Haydn's later quartets less and less, I have a soft spot for op 20 still. I probably should keep quiet about Haydn's keyboard music and symphonies because in truth I've only explored it in the most superficial way, the music has never captured my imagination.


All I can say is that we have had very different experiences with and impressions of these two genius composers. I hear a "humane smile" all over Haydn and, if anything, I'd say he's the warmest--most inviting, amiable, fun--composer I know of. I sometimes hear that in Mozart, but it's not what I'd call his most striking feature. With Mozart I'd say that, at his best, he produced music of truly celestial magnificence, work that's almost too beautiful and too profound to be of this earthly realm. Mozart's best transports me to the heavens, while Haydn's best just makes me glad to be part of humanity. If Haydn was Chaucer then maybe Mozart would be Shakespeare.

Mozart was my first classical music love, and he remains the most profound musical discovery of my life, one in which my appreciation just deepens over time. I never weary of his music, nor does it become over-familiar, and I'm constantly amazed by my ability to revisit both old favorites and lesser-played pieces and find astonishing greatness in them. Haydn I came too much later. At first, I wrote him off as a second-rate Mozart, but, as time's gone on, I've come to appreciate and even love him almost as much, but in a completely different way. While I don't think Haydn quite reaches the Olympian heights as frequently as Mozart, I am always impressed by how consistently excellent and surprising he is, especially given his prolific output. I've gone through the entirety of his symphonies, string quartets, solo piano work, piano trios, and masses, and thoroughly enjoyed the journey through each. Even if Haydn didn't reach Mozart's heights as often, I'd say that if we're just talking about "mere excellence," then no composer has a deeper oeuvre than Haydn.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> His 5 violin concertos are the most boring set of music played on a regular basis by a major composer.


As much as I admire Bach (I think the two books of WTC are the greatest set written for keyboard), I have to admit, the set I find hardest to go through in all of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven is the Bach organ works that span 10 hours in total. Of course there are some that I really appreciate (Fantasia & Fugue in G minor ("Great"), BWV 542, Fugue in G minor ("Little"), BWV 578 , Prelude & Fugue in A minor ("The Great"), BWV 543, Fantasia & Fugue in C minor, BWV 562, Passacaglia & Fugue in C minor, BWV 582 ) but I can't say the same for some others. At least I don't agree with Tchaikovsky's view on his music.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

^ Funnily enough, for me, Bach's organ works are among the easiest works in his oeuvre to digest. I'm rather hit-and-miss with Bach in general, and I think one reason I love his organ works is that the instrument puts some natural power and drama behind his music that I often find lacking when hearing it on other solo instruments or the smaller ensembles that typically play his choral and orchestral works. Something like the Passacaglia and Fugue in Cm turns Bach into something both awesome and terrifying, and on a good sound system (ie, one capable of producing the lowest notes of an organ) it can sound like the damn apocalypse is descending on your house! Not even many modern/contemporary composers can manage that!


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## Anna Strobl (Mar 13, 2019)

MarkW said:


> Not to harp, but


Ha! It's said Mozart disliked both the harp and the flute but did write an absolutely delightful piece for both in his Concerto. Which shows his genius. Or his need to make the bills.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> (First movement is a charmer in itself, but that second movement *may be the darkest in all of piano trio-dom*)


I don't know, it doesn't sound _that_ dark to me, it is dark for Haydn, but I don't find Haydn's darkness very convincing. Have you ever listened to Schnittke's Piano Trio?


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> All I can say is that we have had very different experiences with and impressions of these two genius composers. I hear a "humane smile" all over Haydn and, if anything, I'd say he's the warmest--most inviting, amiable, fun--composer I know of. I sometimes hear that in Mozart, but it's not what I'd call his most striking feature. With Mozart I'd say that, at his best, he produced music of truly celestial magnificence, work that's almost too beautiful and too profound to be of this earthly realm. Mozart's best transports me to the heavens, while Haydn's best just makes me glad to be part of humanity. If Haydn was Chaucer then maybe Mozart would be Shakespeare.
> 
> Mozart was my first classical music love, and he remains the most profound musical discovery of my life, one in which my appreciation just deepens over time. I never weary of his music, nor does it become over-familiar, and I'm constantly amazed by my ability to revisit both old favorites and lesser-played pieces and find astonishing greatness in them. Haydn I came too much later. At first, I wrote him off as a second-rate Mozart, but, as time's gone on, I've come to appreciate and even love him almost as much, but in a completely different way. While I don't think Haydn quite reaches the Olympian heights as frequently as Mozart, I am always impressed by how consistently excellent and surprising he is, especially given his prolific output. I've gone through the entirety of his symphonies, string quartets, solo piano work, piano trios, and masses, and thoroughly enjoyed the journey through each. Even if Haydn didn't reach Mozart's heights as often, I'd say that if we're just talking about "mere excellence," then no composer has a deeper oeuvre than Haydn.


Considering that this is a thread about Mozart in which the name "Haydn" appeared a lot, here is a quote from the former about the latter:

"Nobody can do everything - jest and terrify, cause laughter or move profoundly,- like Joseph Haydn."


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> This comment just reminds me of the great quote from CS Lewis: "Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."


There was a time when I would have whole heartedly agreed with this, however I think realistically there are times and contexts when adults should grow up. There is nothing wrong with reading fairy tales as an adult, and retaining a sense of child like imagination in adult life, in fact I think that is a positive thing, but there are also aspects of being a child that it is healthy to grow out of, such as shirking responsibility or being selfish, naïve or cowardly. I think the word 'childish' refers to these latter attributes, rather than the positive ones.

I think arrested development is a real problem in the world today. A lot of the baby boomer generation in particular strike me as terribly naïve and lacking touch with reality. They were the first on the mind control box known as television and perhaps the most strongly affected. A lot of the propaganda deflects blame onto the millennials and portrays them as being lazy and lacking discipline because they struggle with the immense societal issues they have inherited. They too are being targeted. Human progress has been retarded. In this context I think the word 'childish' can be used as a valid criticism. Our world today is largely comprised of spiritual children too afraid to really face darkness. Religion and new age garbage both teach people to essentially just ignore what is dark, and anything that makes them feel uncomfortable rather than tackling root causes of problems. This is why evil is still running the show. The vast majority of people are in a perpetual state of spiritual adolescence.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

tdc said:


> I don't know, it doesn't sound _that_ dark to me, it is dark for Haydn, but I don't find Haydn's darkness very convincing. Have you ever listened to Schnittke's Piano Trio?


A lot of it has to do with context. You rather expect darkness in modern/post-modern music, so the effect can be a bit dulled. With Haydn, it comes out of nowhere, and is so rare that it feels all the darker and more profound because of it. I have the Schnittke piece and like it in general, but it sounds much more "of its time" than Haydn's does.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

tdc said:


> There was a time when I would have whole heartedly agreed with this, however I think realistically there are times and contexts when adults should grow up. There is nothing wrong with reading fairy tales as an adult, and retaining a sense of child like imagination in adult life, in fact I think that is a positive thing, but *there are also aspects of being a child that it is healthy to grow out of, such as shirking responsibility or being selfish, naïve or cowardly*. I think the word 'childish' refers to these latter attributes, rather than the positive ones.
> 
> I think arrested development is a real problem in the world today. A lot of the baby boomer generation in particular strike me as terribly naïve and lacking touch with reality. They were the first on the mind control box known as television and perhaps the most strongly affected. A lot of the propaganda deflects blame onto the millennials and portrays them as being lazy and lacking discipline because they struggle with the immense societal issues they have inherited. They too are being targeted. Human progress has been retarded. In this context I think the word 'childish' can be used as a valid criticism. Our world today is largely comprised of spiritual children too afraid to really face darkness. Religion and new age garbage both teach people to essentially just ignore what is dark, and anything that makes them feel uncomfortable rather than tackling root causes of problems. This is why evil is still running the show. The vast majority of people are in a perpetual state of spiritual adolescence.


I guess I tend to think of these things less as childhood traits and more as human traits. Are they more prevalent in children? Perhaps, but I've known plenty of children that were responsible, selfless, brave, and less naive than many adults. Much of that has to do with how they're raised, and I suspect that children that are raised so that their selfish desires are indulged, so that they have little responsibility, and are educated on worldly matters, will grow up to be irresponsible, selfish, cowardly, naive adults. However, there are things that come naturally in childhood, like the capacity for imagination and wonder, that seem too often irrevocably lost in adulthood. At least, I suspect more adults lose the capacity for those positive traits than gain the positive traits of responsibility, selflessness, etc. that they lacked as children.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Some individuals choose humor, childlike wonder, and lightness of spirit because they have _known_ the darkness. That does not necessarily mean that everything of a dark or turbulent nature has been swept under the rug or that they have no sense of responsibility. Maybe some of you would like to have been married to Haydn's wife and be in a terrible marriage. That doesn't exactly sound like it was all sweetness and light. But Haydn carried on both personally and creatively with great goodwill in a very positive and constructive way and retained his sense of playfulness and humor. Look at Shostakovich Symphony No. 14 which is actually a meditation on death. But when he wrote about it, he thought of it as an affirmation of life. The same with Mahler. Why would he portray such a sweet sadness and sense of loss in his music if it wasn't somehow an affirmation about the miracle of love and life? So I think others should be very careful about judging what darkness people have faced who just happened to have a sense of humor that may have helped get them through. Grief and darkness can be transformed into something positive and good, even humorous. Musical jokes can also be read on another level. The sudden chords in the Haydn's Surprise Symphony can also be interpreted as his editorial comment on those who fall asleep when they attend concerts. He decided to wake them up and that was probably the last thing they ever expected.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> Some individuals choose humor, childlike wonder, and lightness of spirit because they have _known_ the darkness. That does not necessarily mean that everything of a dark or turbulent nature has been swept under the rug or that they have no sense of responsibility. Maybe some of you would like to have been married to Haydn's wife and be in a terrible marriage. That doesn't exactly sound like it was all sweetness and light. But Haydn carried on both personally and creatively with great goodwill in a very positive and constructive way and retained his sense of playfulness and humor. Look at Shostakovich Symphony No. 14 which is actually a meditation on death. But when he wrote about it, he thought of it as an affirmation of life. The same with Mahler. Why would he portray such a sweet sadness and sense of loss in his music if it wasn't somehow an affirmation about the miracle of love and life? *So I think others should be very careful about judging what darkness people have faced who just happened to have a sense of humor that may have helped get them through. Grief and darkness can be transformed into something positive and good, even humorous. *Musical jokes can also be read on another level. The sudden cords in the Haydn's surprise symphony can also be interpreted as his editorial call me comment on those who fall sleep when they attend concerts. He decided to wake them up and that was probably the last thing they ever expected.


Great post. It reminds me of the curious fact that comedians seen much more likely to suffer from depression than other people. As you suggest, much humor and lightness has its roots as a coping mechanism for life's pain and darkness.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## hoodjem (Feb 23, 2019)

I like Haydn's wit better--more earthy and natural. 
Mozart's wit seems contrived and aristocratic.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Mozart’s real life sense of humor was crude and juvenile


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Mozart's real life sense of humor was crude and juvenile


Welcome to the internet world.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

hoodjem said:


> I like Haydn's wit better--more earthy and natural.
> *Mozart's wit seems contrived and aristocratic*.


oh yeah all that toilet humour not earthy at all

utterly aristocratic - couldnt agree more


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