Humorous Script Oppositions in Classical Chamber Music

Abstract

Most of us can recall chuckling, or even laughing out loud, at a humorous musical passage and perhaps recalling how much that experience increased our enjoyment of the music. This article focuses on musical humor in passages from instrumental works by Joseph Haydn, Michael Haydn, and Mozart. In the most general sense, musical humor arises when composers play with established conventions of musical discourse by writing something incongruous according to the stylistic context.

I begin by briefly discussing the role of contrast in establishing musical humor in both historical and modern writings. I then introduce a strategy by which Classical composers created musical humor. I call this strategy “script opposition,” following linguistic theories of verbal humor. In my analytical discussion, I explain how “valence shifts” between implications of “high” and “low” create script oppositions, and demonstrate how these valence shifts are produced primarily by musical topics, but are bolstered by formal functions and cues in other musical parameters. My analytical and theoretical approach to musical humor draws on recent studies of musical topics, form, and communication in the Classical style, as well as concepts from recent linguistic theories of verbal humor.