Haydn and Humor

One of the most celebrated instances of humor in the music of Joseph Hadyn is in the slow movement of his Symphony No. 94: a very abrupt forte of which the composer reputedly said, “That will make the ladies scream.” The symphony derives its nickname, “The Surprise,” from this musical joke.

Well, I have to admit that it’s not easy to make a classical music radio host scream, and musicologists probably aren’t so easily startled either, but any of us could attest that Haydn’s music is full of these types of little surprises. One of the many manifestations of his genius is his seemingly inexhaustible capacity to surprise and delight us with the unexpected. But one reason this is so is because Haydn is actually very funny.

It’s a bit of an odd concept: how can music be funny? Music is just notes, it’s just vibrations. But we can ask the question about any feeling: how can music be sad, or joyful, or frightening, or noble or heroic or frivolous or whatever, when it’s just notes? Haydn was a great composer because his understanding of this power of music to express non-musical ideas was so refined and so vastly creative. And he had a particularly effective grasp of how music can be funny.

In the “Farewell” Symphony (No. 45), the musicians depart the stage one by one until only two are left. It was a musical protest: Haydn wanted his colleagues to be able to go home. They were in the service of Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy, and Haydn used humor to let his rich, powerful boss know that they were feeling put upon. It was a bold move, but perhaps because Haydn’s humor is so benign and so beguiling, it worked: the prince gave Haydn and his fellow court musicians what they wanted.

The Symphony No. 98 is one of Haydn’s “London” symphonies, the last twelve symphonies he wrote during his two visits to London in the 1790s. At the very end of it, there’s a joke about the evolution of ensemble playing: by the end of the eighteenth century, the keyboard continuo was old-fashioned and increasingly obsolete. Haydn throws in a rather ridiculous little solo for the instrument to emphasize this point. This is a very nerdy musical joke, which is one of the reasons I love it so much. Maybe Haydn is saying, “Hey look, orchestras have gotten big enough that they don’t need a keyboard to fill in the harmonies anymore, but what the heck, let’s reminisce about what that was like in the old days.” It’s silly and even a bit goofy, and yet at the very same time it’s also elegant and urbane and intellectual. It’s a very smart, very knowledgeable person having a laugh that everyone can enjoy.

One of the things I love about Haydn in particular is the relationship between his creative output and his personality — how he composed in a way that not only left us with a body of fantastic, imaginative and thrilling music, but which conveyed his personality. We can say this about many composers, but what’s especially compelling for me about the way this manifests itself with Haydn’s music is that his personality was so exceptional. Haydn came from humble beginnings: his parents were of very modest means, and his childhood, his adolescence and the first years of his adulthood were all fraught with all kinds of hardship and privation. Haydn appears to have been a person who was ennobled by his suffering rather than being embittered by it. He grew into a generous person who treated others fairly and with dignity, he seemed incapable of self-pity, and although he exhibited an immense confidence that seems to have been rooted in a genuine self-respect, there are hardly any reports of him ever being arrogant or cruel or selfish. He was also a deeply religious man, and his personal faith seems to come across in his music. I think his faith was grounded in a sense of the abundance of life; I think he viewed existence as being full of joy and possibility, and he seems to have embraced this mortal coil with gratitude and humility. So I think his humor is a facet of this attitude: this idea that in the face of the absurdities and uncertainties and even the real pain of the world, we shouldn’t abstain from seeing how life is funny. 

I have often said that one of the things I love most about Haydn’s humor is its inherent and unshakeable benevolence: even at his most satirical, he is never mean-spirited or stingy or cynical. He is always laughing with us, never at us. He even seems to be laughing at himself at times, but it’s never with self-disgust or discouragement. His self-deprecating humor is an expression of humility and maybe even of hopefulness: the idea that we can laugh at life, we can even laugh at ourselves, because maybe things can be better than they are. Maybe there’s more beauty and goodness and laughter in this insane world than we knew.