Chris Bonds ponders Beethoven's humor:

>3.  The false re-entry of the theme by first horn at the recapitulation
>in the first movement of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.  Is this humor--
>or something else?

Sounds like the beginning of a dissertation to me...

I've wondered about the 'false' horn entry there as well.  The whole
movement's architechture is so deliberate that you -have- to wonder.  I
think it's damned funny; but I'm not sure that's the intent.  Sometimes
I wonder if LvB wasn't (like Haydn) anticipating what he knew you'd
anticipate (is that clear?).  He certainly could write a sonata-allegro
form movement like nobody's business.

Ahh...Beethoven was one funny dude, when he wasn't busy being bitter and
isolated.  His "Joke Canons" and other miscellany are great.  Most of them
are to friends, and contain plays on their names.  For example, for his
friend the composer Kuhlau, he wrote a canon

Ku:hl, nicht lau (Cool, not lukewarm).

No question of the humorous intent here...or is there?  Anyway...

Norman Schwartz, on a related thread:

>I hear LvB loud and clear in everything he set down on paper.
>Unusual as it may sound to some folks, I even love "Wellington's Victory".

Me too.

>I could never tire or get enough of Beethoven all the way to my very end!

Right on, brother.  I'm with ya.

Bob K.