A Musical Joke

work by Mozart
Also known as: “Ein musikalischer Spass”

Learn about this topic in these articles:

discussed in biography

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    In Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: From Figaro to Don Giovanni

    …note: the Musikalischer Spass (Musical Joke), a good-humoured parody of bad music, in a vein Leopold would have liked (it was thought to have been provoked by his death until it was found that it was begun much earlier); Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the exquisite and much-loved serenade, probably intended…

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parodies

  • In parody

    Mozart’s Ein musikalischer Spass (A Musical Joke; K. 522, 1787), deliberately violates any number of technical conventions, concluding with glaringly “wrong” notes; the endless, rapid repetitions of the word amen in Hector Berlioz’ oratorio L’Enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ; Opus 25, 1854) clearly poke fun at the…

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