Humour in Beethoven's Music

[Fredrika]

I loved reading all this.... it reminds me of what I answer when people ask me 'Why Beethoven?': there is no human emotion that escaped him in his music, and however serious people take him, he was a man with many moods, including the light ones (remember the nicknames he had for his friends...). No composer I know has this wide a panoply of feelings, thoughts, emotions that he/she can express through music.
Fantastic.

I fully agree!

There are so many different types of jokes too! From completely silly ones like the canon he made to a friend "Esel aller esel", the donkey of all donkeys, ending the singers going "ee-ah, ee-ah, ee-ah" to the more complex ones that have been mentioned here taken from the symphonies, quartets and piano sonatas. I love it when you hear from the music he really didn't care if others got the joke, as long as it was making him laugh it was enough

[AeolianHarp]

I fully agree!

There are so many different types of jokes too! From completely silly ones like the canon he made to a friend "Esel aller esel", the donkey of all donkeys, ending the singers going "ee-ah, ee-ah, ee-ah" to the more complex ones that have been mentioned here taken from the symphonies, quartets and piano sonatas. I love it when you hear from the music he really didn't care if others got the joke, as long as it was making him laugh it was enough

Maybe Ludwig kept his broken chair for such occasions Fredrika!

[Harvey]

Fidelio starts out with a humorous situation of Marzelline falling for Fidelio to Jaquino's chagrin. Then jovial and obtuse Rocco falls for it too and sings his humorous gold song. Even the march that introduces the bad guy is a very light-hearted march that belies the coming evil one. Yet Pizarro for all his evilness is rather comical gloating in his plan for revenge. But then the opera turns dead serious with the plot to murder, the unwilling accomplice, and Leonora going down to dig her own husband's grave.