# Musical jokes in the music



## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

I read that the second movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony contains musical jokes. Can anyone link to a youtube video of these 'jokes' with an explanation, or any other piece.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Musicforawhile, great question. I'm curious as well about jokes in music. I never heard about there being any in Beethoven's 7th, but I know for sure that the 2nd mvt of Beethoven's 8th is referred to as having a "musical joke". I'm far from being knowledgeable enough to point out these jokes, what they refer to, or why they're even jokes in the first place!

I also recall PetrB saying he laughed at some jokes in Stravinsky's music.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Beethoven in general was one of the funniest composers who ever lived but his humor, while not subtle, was seldom course. I don't know what I would call overtly humorous in the 7th Symphony. But some other examples include:

-- The seeming "where's the bar line" syncopations in the scherzo of the Quartet Op.18 no.6.

-- Oddball instrumentation such as the tripping bassoon themes in the outer movements of the 4th Symphony, or the wildly fast double bass line in the trio of the Fifth's scherzo.

-- The wonderfully insane trio of the Quartet, Opus 135 and the wild off-the-beat cadence in the scherzo proper.

-- Comic relief all over the place in the c-sharp minor Quartet Opus 131, including a place I've mentioned before at the end of the penultimate movement where it sounds like the players have lost the thread and the whole performance threatens to beak down.

You don't have to laugh out loud during a performance, but breaking into a broad smile if it so suits you is completely appropriate.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Here is a famous one. The fourth movement of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (just after 2:00 in the link below: …






… quotes a theme from the first movement of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony, which builds up for a long, long time in Bolero fashion (this link leads to the last half of the movement and the theme is at the beginning of the linked portion, the most recognizable motive being at around 13 seconds):






The Shostakovich in turn quotes a theme from an operetta by Lehar, which, in the Shostakovich, has been presumed to represent the invading German forces approaching Leningrad. Bartok was deathly ill in hospital at a time when this piece was being played all over the free world. The simulated laughter in the winds and trombone glissandos is usually heard as laughing at the first movement of the Shostakovich.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Interesting GGluek, very insightful. Beethoven's String Quartet #16 (Op. 135) is certainly one of the oddest SQ's I've heard. I love the strangeness or comic relief interspersed with profoundness in Beethoven's Late Quartets. That mixture is one of the Late Quartets' trademarks, in my opinion.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

GGluek said:


> Beethoven in general was one of the funniest composers who ever lived but his humor, while not subtle, was seldom course. I don't know what I would call overtly humorous in the 7th Symphony. But some other examples include:
> 
> -- The seeming "where's the bar line" syncopations in the scherzo of the Quartet Op.18 no.6.
> 
> ...


Let me second Beethoven as a comic genius. I hear whole movements by Beethoven as comic dramas (abstract, of course, in purely musical terms, not telling any kind of extramusical story). The first movement of the Quartet Op. 59, #3, for example, finds a little, often disruptive, two note motive in the opening theme running amok in the development section and eventually losing its way until the voice of a soloist (first violin) returns to restore order. The whole thing seems to be a strange competition between a discursive and overblown solo persona and a kind of mindless objection in the accompanying voices.

The first movement of the Sonata Op. 31 #3 and the first movement of the Quartet Op. 135 also strike me as unified comedies.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Listen to the opening of Beethoven's Quartet in E-flat, Op. 127. You know where the downbeats are, don't you?

No, you don't. ut:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

GGluek said:


> Beethoven in general was one of the funniest composers who ever lived but his humor, while not subtle, was seldom course. I don't know what I would call overtly humorous in the 7th Symphony. But some other examples include:
> 
> -- The seeming "where's the bar line" syncopations in the scherzo of the Quartet Op.18 no.6.
> 
> ...


YES! Laugh-out loud musical jokes don't necessarily refer to anything outside the work itself, but are about some twist of what is expected, like a magician's sleight-of-hand, where the ear's attention is pulled in one direction, and then something happens which just surprises, and the surprise is humorous. It really is quite difficult to explain, and a lot about it, like any 'theatrical trick,' has as much to do with timing -- the what and where of it -- as anything else.

Other great musical comedians:
Haydn
Stravinsky


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Listen to the opening of Beethoven's Quartet in E-flat, Op. 127. You know where the downbeats are, don't you?
> 
> No, you don't. ut:


_WHERE_ is that bar-line!?! :lol:


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## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> The Shostakovich in turn quotes a theme from an operetta by Lehar, which, in the Shostakovich, has been presumed to represent the invading German forces approaching Leningrad. Bartok was deathly ill in hospital at a time when this piece was being played all over the free world. The simulated laughter in the winds and trombone glissandos is usually heard as laughing at the first movement of the Shostakovich.


Very interesting and thank you for the youtube links, but I don't understand. Why would Bartok be laughing at something that is anti-Hitler/Stalin?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The story is that Bartok thought it was banal and bad music, and he was pretty resentful that it was so popular while he was ill and in poverty and his music neglected. So he's really more sneering than laughing, and his horselaughs aren't hard to decipher.


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## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

Thank you KenOC, that makes sense now.


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## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

Here is the 4th movement of Beethoven's 2nd symphony. I guess this qualifies as a joke.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

I laughed out loud several times in Saint-Saens' _Carnival of the Animals_.
Oh, Camille, you're such a rascal.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Here is a famous one. The fourth movement of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra


And the second movement ("Game of couples") from the same work also strikes me as humourous. At least, it always makes me smile.

And then, speaking of Shostakovich, almost the entirety of his ninth symphony is one big joke, especially near the end of the development section of the first movement, where he makes a ridiculous number of false starts on the recapitulation.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Haydn - String Quartet Op.33 No.2 (The Joke)






Wikipedia:
_At the end of the Rondo, starting at measure 148, Haydn implements a joke in this piece. It begins with a grand pause that makes the audience wonder if the piece is over. This is followed by a sudden forte sixteenth note in the beginning of the adagio that shocks the audience. After this, the first violin plays the A theme of the opening phrase with rests interrupting the music every two bars. The rests get progressively longer, giving the impression that the piece is over many times in a row, making for an amusing ending. During this time period, it has been said that audiences would erupt in laughter at this humorous coda. Haydn used this coda not only to make fun of audiences confused as to where to applaud, but also amateur musicians who were too "beat-driven," and what he deemed a redundant rondo form._


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Erik Satie in "Embryons desséchés" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryons_dess%C3%A9ch%C3%A9s
"Satie concludes his triptych with a coda marked, "Obligatory cadenza (by the composer.)" Consisting, as it does, of more than half a page of fortissimo F-major chords and arpeggios, this grandiose flourish is hilariously incongruous with the modest proportions of the piece as a whole. It appears to be a pastiche of the end of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony, and of Beethoven's style, the "endless coda"."




 It begins at 1:08.


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## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

Musicforawhile said:


> Here is the 4th movement of Beethoven's 2nd symphony. I guess this qualifies as a joke.


Just in case anyone doesn't know this is the one where Beethoven represents musically the sounds of his gastro-digestional troubles i.e burping and farting.


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## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

brianvds said:


> And the second movement ("Game of couples") from the same work also strikes me as humourous. At least, it always makes me smile.
> 
> And then, speaking of Shostakovich, almost the entirety of his ninth symphony is one big joke, especially near the end of the development section of the first movement, where he makes a ridiculous number of false starts on the recapitulation.


I listened to it, but couldn't find the end of the development section, can you link a video with the time of the end of the development section where the false starts start, please.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Musicforawhile said:


> I listened to it, but couldn't find the end of the development section, can you link a video with the time of the end of the development section where the false starts start, please.


Alas, I have a capo on my data and cannot watch much in the way of YouTube videos. It is also possible that the bit I have in mind isn't even at the end of the development section; perhaps more knowledgeable members could correct me on that.

Anyway, earlier on in the piece, the brass lets out two notes, followed by some jolly taps of the drums. Now in the bit I have in mind, you hear those same two brassy notes, but instead of the drums, the music just goes on. The brass then keeps on repeating them, as if they have forgotten where in the piece they are, or as if they are insisting that the blasted drums should now play their bit, until at last you do hear the drums again.


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## Crassus (Nov 4, 2013)

I find the thematic constrast in the first movement of Beethoven's Op.29 hilarious. It's like desecreting everything that represents goodness without sounding vulgar.


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2014)

I like Tom Service's commentary on Schnittke's 1st symphony (a symphony that makes me smile at parts and leaves me dumbstruck at others). 

He basically says that the entire symphony could be viewed as a joke, but that the enormous scale of the work (Mahlerian length with a massive orchestra, with more twists, turns, and references than you can shake a stick (or three) at) demands that it be taken seriously.


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