Humour in Classical Music Works

rojo

(Ret)
Last night I heard Philip Corner`s Concerto for Housekeeper (+dust rag. 2004), which I found funny. Which got me thinking, there are surely many classical pieces that are humorous, or have some joke element to them. I also find humour in some works by Cage, Ligeti, Stockhausen and Schnittke. What are the classical pieces in which you find humour?
 
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Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
Anything of Peter Schickele, especially The Short Tempered Clavier - Preludes and Fugues in all the Major & Minor Keys Except for the Really Hard Ones (s. easy as 3.14159265)

Well, they were truly classical before PDQ Bach, now they are simply classics
 

CMB

New member
Peter Schikele can't be mentioned without also mentioning Anna Russell, who did a hilarious annotation of the Ring Cycle, and Spike Jones, who although not very well known to modern audiences under 40, still can't be topped for their send-ups of classical music.

But the original question sounds as if it is more about composers who write with humor.
I think Michael Nyman has some humor, and John Corigliano in "Ghosts of Versailles".
 

Albert

New member
I haven't heard Spike Jones for longer than I care to admit. We had 78's when I was in school - and I don't mean college. I have all the PDQ Bach music ever produced, I think. CDs, tapes, even one LP.
 

Art Rock

Sr. Regulator
Staff member
Sr. Regulator
Most of Malcolm Arnold's output was "serious" classical music, but in his Commonwealth Overture he included a Jamaican steel band, and in his Grand Grand overture there are parts for hoovers adn a shotgun. :)
 

Gary Blanchard

New member
I once wrote and performed the "Kitchen/Kitsch Concerto" for kitchen utensils and toy instruments. I might do a "serious" arrangement of it one of these days. :grin:
 

Manuel

New member
Mahler, Schostakovich, Stravinsky, Haydn... Maybe also Beethoven

Depending on the work. If what you hear is a monumental passacaglia depicting the horror of the soviet regime and the anguish of its victims... there's not much humour there.
 

Hildegard

New member
Depending on the work. If what you hear is a monumental passacaglia depicting the horror of the soviet regime and the anguish of its victims... there's not much humour there.

It's double-entendre. Not just humour you say ha-ha to. When he depicts the horror of the soviet regime, he also make fun of the regime. It's typical Shostakovich.
 

Manuel

New member
It's double-entendre. Not just humour you say ha-ha to. When he depicts the horror of the soviet regime, he also make fun of the regime. It's typical Shostakovich.

No. Really, it's just the pain.
There's no intention of being humorous there. The sarcasm is entirely in 2nd and 4th movs.
 

Gary Blanchard

New member
Listening to Eric Satie's piano works this morning reminded me of his humor. In response to a critic stating that his music had no form, he wrote "Music In the Form of a Pear."
 

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
Intentional re-write of a piece to add a humor element:
The Slot Machine Concerto
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgVOMdx5_Xc[/youtube]
 
Ferde Grofe I find really creative and humourous in his use of the orchestra. The click clack of the mule in "On the Trail" from his grand canyon suite. He also has things like dogs barking, and in his one of his river suites the piece is about finally floating to a city in which one hears chaos and the sirens of an ambulance, it's really fun what he can put it into music, like the horn of steam ship.
 

Nullifidian

New member
There are two types of humor: that about classical music from the outside, and that about it from the inside.

One of the best insider's takes on academic serialism was done by a serialist named Humphrey Searle (a neglected genius of symphonic writing, IMO). It was at the Hoffnung Festival (CDs of which are still in print today), where they'd play works like Leopold Mozart's Concerto for Hosepipe, the Grand, Grand Overture mentioned previously, and larger works like Let's Fake an Opera (or, The Tales of Hoffnung).

Searle's contribution, aside from a setting of Lochinvar, was a piece called Punkt/Contrapunkt (a takeoff on Stockhausen's Kontrapunkt). It features to German academics babbling away for nine minutes, after which the piece they've just analyzed turns out to be only thirty seconds long.

It also has the best opening line in the world: "Music began when Arnold Schoenberg invented the tone row." :D

From the outside, I don't think it gets any better than Dudley Moore's setting of Little Miss Tuffet in the style of Britten as sung by Peter Pears and a "Ballad of Gangster Joe" which is a pitch perfect parody of Weill and Brecht.

Personally, I think Harrison Birtwistle's Punch and Judy is one of the funniest things I've ever heard (but I imagine many wouldn't agree; Britten walked out of the first performance).

I was lucky enough to see Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre in San Francisco, and I thought I'd die laughing.
 

janny108

New member
Anything of Peter Schickele, especially The Short Tempered Clavier - Preludes and Fugues in all the Major & Minor Keys Except for the Really Hard Ones (s. easy as 3.14159265)

Well, they were truly classical before PDQ Bach, now they are simply classics

What is being implied by short tempered or well tempered in regards to the instrument?
Jan
 

Nullifidian

New member
What is being implied by short tempered or well tempered in regards to the instrument?
Jan

Well-tempered means, in this case, equal-tempered or dividing the octave up where each note of the chromatic scale is an equal distance from the one before and after it.

Short-tempered means temperamental.
 
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