A Musical Joke
A Musical Joke (German: Ein musikalischer Spaß) K. 522, (divertimento for two horns in F, and string quartet) is a composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; he entered it in his Verzeichnis aller meiner Werke (Catalogue of All My Works) on June 14, 1787. Commentators have opined that the piece's purpose is satirical – that "[its] harmonic and rhythmic gaffes serve to parody the work of incompetent composers"[1] – though Mozart himself is not known to have revealed his actual intentions.
The beginning of the fourth movement is well-known in Britain as the theme tune to the BBC's television coverage of the Horse of the Year Show.[2][3]
English name
The title A Musical Joke might be a poor rendering of the German original: Spaß does not necessarily connote the jocular, for which the word Scherz would more likely be used. In Fritz Spiegl's view, a more accurate translation would be Some Musical Fun.[3][4] The sometimes-mentioned nicknames Dorfmusikantensextett ("village musicians' sextet") and Bauernsinfonie ("farmers' symphony") were added after Mozart's death; these names ridicule the players more than inept composers.[5]
Structure and compositional elements
The piece consists of four movements and takes about 20 minutes to perform.
- Allegro (sonata form), F major
- Menuetto and trio, F major (trio in B♭ major)
- Adagio cantabile, C major
- Presto (sonata rondo form), F major
Compositorial comedic devices include:[5]
- secondary dominants replacing necessary subdominantchords;
- discordsin the horns;
- parallel fifths
- whole-tone scales in the violin's high register;
- clumsy orchestration, backing a thin melodic line with a heavy, monotonous accompaniment in the last movement;
- going to the wrong keys for a sonata-form structure (the first movement, for example, never succeeds in modulating to the dominant, and simply jumps there instead after a few failed attempts);
- starting the slow movement in the wrong key (G major instead of C major);
- a pathetic attempt at a fugato, also in the last movement.
The piece is notable for one of the earliest known uses of
References
- ^ Sadie, Stanley (1980). "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. London: Macmillan. p. [page needed].
- ^ "Mozart – A Musical Joke". Classic FM. Retrieved 22 March 2024.
- ^ a b George Hamilton (13 August 2017). "Musical fun fit for horse show week". Irish Independent. Retrieved 22 March 2024.
- ^ [Untitled talk] (Radio broadcast). BBC Radio 3. October 1981.[full citation needed]
- ^ a b Irving Godt (24 October 2018) [1 October 1986]. "Mozart's Real Joke". College Music Symposium. Retrieved 22 March 2024. Extensive analysis with sources.
External links
- Ein musikalischer Spaß: Score and critical report (in German) in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe
- Ein musikalischer Spaß at the Mutopia Project
- Ein musikalischer Spaß: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
- Animated score on YouTube, Dennis Brain, Neill Sanders (horn); Manoug Parikian (violin); London Philharmonic Orchestra, Guido Cantelli
- Discussion of Mozart's intentionally bad counterpoint in this work on YouTube