A Musical Joke

"A Musical Joke" (in German: "Ein Musikalischer Spaß") K. 522, (Divertimento for two horns and strings) is a composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; the composer dated it in his list of works on June 14, 1787. It was intentionally written to be funny, or, as assumed by some theorists, to mock mediocre musicians among the composer's contemporaries.

The piece consists of four movements, using forms shared with many other classical divertimenti:
# Allegro. (In sonata form)
# Menuetto and Trio.
# Adagio cantabile.
# Presto. (Sonata rondo form)Nevertheless, the music has potential to appeal to the average audience of that time as a comedy, including:
*use of asymmetrical phrasing, or not phrasing by four measure groups, at the beginning of the first movement, which is very uncommon for the classical period,
*use of secondary dominants where subdominant chords are just fair,
*the use of discords in the French horns, satirizing the incompetence of the copyist, or the hornist grabbing the wrong crook,
*use of a whole tone scale in the violinist's high register, probably in order to imitate the player's floundering at the high positionsThe piece is also notable for the earliest known use of polytonality, which may be intended to create out-of-tune sound of the string, at the final chord of the finale:Some theorists believe that "A Musical Joke" is a parody of works by clumsy composers of Mozart's time. With such an assumption, one would find some points of the score hilarious, such as the more elementary developments of the theme, where the poor composer might feel the agony that he/she had to proceed with the development. Other theorists disagree with that view, saying that perhaps Mozart used parody and comedy as an excuse to try things that at the time were not in practice; the piece would then be intended in a more serious tone than so advertised but only for the composer himself.

The use of asymmetrical phrasing, whole-tone scales, and multitonality is quite foreign to music of the classical era. However, these techniques were later revisited by early 20th century composers like Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky, who were searching for a new musical language. In this later context, these conventions were seen as legitimate new techniques in serious music. In Mozart's time, however, these non-classical elements gives the piece its comedy and perfectly expresses the composer's sense of musical humor.

Other uses

"Perpetuum mobile: Ein musikalischer Scherz" op. 257, polka by Johann Strauss II is also translated as "A Musical Joke"'.

"A Musical Joke" was used for many years as the theme tune to the BBC's coverage of the Horse of the Year Show.

External links

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* [http://www.mozart-weltweit.eu/mozart-archiv/serie04.htm Recording of "A Musical Joke"]