The same coarseness comes out in that variation, and really ought to provoke
laughter. But most audiences sit stony-faced. An awful lot of humour in
music passes us by, because as we’ve become more sophisticated (or more
priggish), these old things have lost their force. The reason stand-up
comics have to resort to more and more ‘shocking’ language is that the old
categories of high and low, seemly and unseemly, have just melted away. So a
great resource for comedy no longer exists, and the comics have to fill the
void somehow. The same thing has happened in music. The phraseology of
classical-era music is full of gradations of politeness, but we don’t feel
them any more.
Music from a later era sometimes loses its laughter for a different reason,
revealed in a comic opera by the French 19th-century composer Chabrier. One
number made Debussy laugh so loudly he had to be escorted from the theatre
by the gendarmerie. But we feel uncomfortable with this famous ‘Chartreuse
verte’ duo, because it’s about the pleasures of getting drunk on green
chartreuse (for the same reason the video of Dean Martin swaying gently as
he sings When You’re Drinking is now unwatchable).
Fortunately in the modern era a few composers have discovered a new sort of
humour, which doesn’t need class distinctions, and doesn’t make embarrassing
jokes about drink. Surreal juxtapositions and a tendency to push things to
mad extremes are at the root of it. György Ligeti and Gerald Barry are the
great masters of this sort of humour. It’s a welcome sign that classical
music still doesn’t have to be entirely serious.
Rainer Hersch’s April Fool’s Comedy Concert takes place at the Royal
Festival Hall London SE1 on April 21; tickets: 0844 875 0073; southbankcentre.co.uk
On April 9 Brunel University’s Institute of Composers hosts a public forum
on humour in music; tickets: instituteofcomposing.org
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Article source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/10750106/Classical-music-funny-Surely-youre-joking....html