# You Favorite Musical Jokes



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I'm not well versed enough to make a poll on this to please the abundant population on talk classical more knowledgable on the subject than me. So I just thought I'd ask you guys, and put forth my own. What are your favorite pieces that can be termed musical jokes, full of wit, humor, and maybe even using such to mask deeper undercurrents.

I am currently in love with *Carl Nielsen's 6th symphony*, _Sinfonia semplice_. To me, this work has such an overflowing abundance of wit and humor, and does indeed mask deeper undercurrents. Its a fascinating landscape of oddities that is also very satisfyingly coherent and even exciting.

But there are many ways a composers can joke around and make profound statements with them all the same, not just in Nielsen's brand of neoclassical writing. What are your favorites?


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

I have thought for a long time that a concert could start with Bolero, and the musicians coming on stage only as they are needed. And the concert would end with the "Farewell Symphony" with the musicians leaving the stage as they finish. If it's been done, I missed it.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Well, there's Peter Schikele's "Unbegun Symphony." 

Perhaps he is too obvious.


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

Weston said:


> Well, there's Peter Schikele's "Unbegun Symphony."
> 
> Perhaps he is too obvious.


I really liked his rendition of Beethoven's 5th.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

I've mentioned this before: although probably not intended as a joke, I find the "piano-banging" moment in the first movement of Schoenberg's piano concerto amusing.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

The finale of Charles Ives´s second symphony, perhaps one of the greatest jokes in classical music history.


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## omega (Mar 13, 2014)

*Hindemith*
_Overture to "The Flying Dutchman" as Played at Sight by a Second-Rate Spa Orchestra at the Village Well at 7 O'Clock in the Morning_ :lol:

The title itself is already a joke... Here is the masterpiece:


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## Proms Fanatic (Nov 23, 2014)

Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique is full of dark humour. In the fourth movement, pizzicato strings depicts his own beheading is a nasty dream. The fifth movement contains a version of the religious "Dies Irae" in an environment full of sin and evil.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Proms Fanatic said:


> Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique is full of dark humour. In the fourth movement, pizzicato strings depicts his own beheading is a nasty dream. The fifth movement contains a version of the religious "Dies Irae" in an environment full of sin and evil.


Berlioz in general, I find full of humor along with all the grandiosity.


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

Mozart's Musical Joke (Musikalischer Spass) is very funny. 
Also his canon Lick My **** (pardon his French). 

EDIT:
How interesting! The rude four letter word beginning with a, ending with e, with r and s in the middle, has been edited by the program to be four asterisks. I didn't know that could be done. What does it do with the German name: Leck mich im arsch. Is the automatic censor multi-lingual?

SECOND EDIT?
Apparently not.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

omega said:


> *Hindemith*
> _Overture to "The Flying Dutchman" as Played at Sight by a Second-Rate Spa Orchestra at the Village Well at 7 O'Clock in the Morning_ :lol:
> 
> The title itself is already a joke... Here is the masterpiece:


It's clear that after these daring harmonies Wagner lost his nerve, and that _Tristan und Isolde_ was a step backward. If Schoenberg had heard this he would have been spared the structural dilemmas of atonality, serialism would never have been considered necessary, and music could have skipped right past modernism to the postmodern deconstructionism of Schnittke. Goodness knows what poor Boulez would have found to do. Declare himself "inutile," perhaps.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Shostakovich's 9th symphony can, depending on which view you take, be seen as a musical joke on reaching his 9th or a very pointed political satire on the state of the Soviet Union, effectively a joke on the establishment.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

If you want to have fun:



:lol:


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

*Moritz Moszkowski ~ Anton Notenquetscher am Klavier - Musical Parodies.*

This is a short but entertaining Theme and Variations in the styles of various composers in nine parts:

Theme - Czerny - Clementi - Bach - Brahms - Weber - Chopin - Rubinstein - Liszt

Below is a link to a complete live performance. YT also has the series of individual variations played by Christof Keymer.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

I may be bending the rules, but I also want to share this hilarious and well played spoof -- the late Dudley Moore's parody of a Beethoven piano sonata using as a theme the "Colonel Bogey March" from the movie _The Bridge over the River Kwai_.


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## TwoPhotons (Feb 13, 2015)

Grainger's "In Dahomey" is quite witty, especially with the trombone slides:






I also think Alkan's 'dogs yapping' section in his Aesop's Feast is witty (6:08):






(Alkan had a great sense of humour and always seemed to infuse some sort of wit into his pieces, mostly by using strong, unexpected contrasts.)

Haydn also had plenty of witty moments - beginning of his 50th Piano Sonata, for example.

Also, in a slightly different vein, not only is the music here a laughing stock, but the way the page-turner completely gives up 2 seconds into the performance is just as funny:


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Knock knock
Who's there?

Knock knock
Who's there?

Knock knock
Who's there?

Knock knock
Who's there?

Knock knock
Who's there?

Knock knock
Who's there?

Knock knock
Who's there?

Knock knock
Who's there?

Phillip Glass...


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