humoresque, a type of character piece, generally a short piano composition expressing a mood or a vague nonmusical idea, usually more good-humored than humorous. Robert Schumann, the first composer to use the term as a musical title, called his Opus 20 (1839) Humoreske (it is atypically like a long suite). His Opus 88, No. 2, is a humoresque for violin, cello, and piano. The best-known is Antonín Dvořák’s Humoresque in G-flat, the seventh in his collection Eight Humoresques for piano (1894). Gustav Mahler originally called his Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1888–99; Songs From the Youth’s Magic Horn) “Humoreske.”