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?
Last edited by rojo; Feb-07-2007 at 19:21.
''Music, I feel, should be emotional first and intellectual second.'' - Maurice Ravel
''The greatest education in the world is watching the masters at work.'' - Michael Jackson
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
Kh ~~.
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Amateur musicians practice until they get it right ...
Professional musicians practice until they can't get it wrong ...
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".
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.
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.
The trumpet in Shostakovich's first piano concerto seems humorous to me.
Mahler, Schostakovich, Stravinsky, Haydn... Maybe also Beethoven
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.
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.Originally Posted by Hildegard
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.
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."
Intentional re-write of a piece to add a humor element:
The Slot Machine Concerto
+ YouTube Video
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.
Real dogs or instruments imitating them?
Piston's The Incredible flutists include a cheering crowd, a circus fanfare and real dogs
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