Mozart: A Musical Joke K522

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
A Musical Joke / Ein Musikalischer Spaß / Zenei tréfa
The Village Musicians / Dorfmusikanten / Falusi muzsikusok

00:00 Allegro
04:39 Menuetto: Maestoso; Trio
10:27 Adagio Cantabile
16:05 Presto

Recording: approximative in 1980

Dedicated to: http://klasszikusok.blog.hu/2010/09/14/riccardo_muti_vezenyel

Category:

Music

Tags:

• mozart
• a musical joke
• ein musikalischer spaß
• zenei tréfa
• the village musicians
• dorfmusikanten
• falusi muzsikusok
• music sheet
• score

[HMSTR1995]

oh Mozart, such a comedian.

[kotsiasmar]

Oh, god help me... How one can explain why this is funny to people who have no idea about music/harmony/classicism without looking like a pompous, annoying piece of shit? You, random mozart-loving youtube person reading this, do that for us all please...

[misantropfagia]

@1685Violin maybe it was written in austria, you no, mozart stuff

[MrJrd2014]

@kotsiasmar Eh, too lazy. Wikipedia it.

[1685Violin]

Why does the first movement remind me of Austria. Greetings from Michigan.

[Ybarchov21]

@HowitzerBug 16:06 4th movement: Typically the last movement is fast and energetic, so why not have a goofy galloping theme? (What I'm thinking) Also the chord change at 16:17 is pretty goofy. I haven't heard it anywhere else within the classical period. So he's making fun of traditional harmonic chord changes. The worst cannon ever at 16:34. He also ends in 5 different keys (Bflat major, Eflat major, A major, G major, and C major) which, if you play all of those together, sound awful.

Funny :)

[Ybarchov21]

@HowitzerBug

10:27 3rd movement: Some irregular phrasing. Again, not too popular in the classical period. The main joke however is in the cadenza. At 15:34 the violin plays a whole tone scale in the higher register, which sounds completely awful in this context and you'd NEVER here in classical music. If you heard this back then, your first thought would be "Man what a crappy violinist. Can't even play in the higher register."

Mozart must hate incompetent players, thus the joke.

[Ybarchov21]

@HowitzerBug

4:39 2nd movement (Menuetto): The horns play out of tune when they get the melody at 5:23. To change keys on the horn, they would have to pick different valves to attach to compensate. Mozart is poking fun at the fact that some musicians grab the wrong valve by accident. In the Trio, he does the same thing as the first movement. Poorly develops themes and has irregular phrases (he has a phrase of 7 bars before he repeats the violin run again).

[Ybarchov21]

@HowitzerBug Here is why it's pretty damn funny.

1st movement: Usually classical music is VERY symmetrical (4 bars, 8 bars, even 16 bars some times). Count the bar phrases (how many times you hear four beats before the mood/music changes). Some phrases are 7 bars long, some are even 6, and I think I found a 5. Also, he doesn't develop any of the themes. Compare his 40th symphony to this. His symphony is pure genius in how he develops the music. This sounds like modern cut and paste.

[HowitzerBug]

I like a range of classical music but know practically nothing about it... Have to say this video made me feel really stupid :(

[Gamma1734]

14:24 was actually really funny

[mij194]

Like if you laughed at the ending.