Robert Peters:

>Today I listened to a radio feature on my favourite classical music
>channel.  The title was "The Shadow of Laughter".  Laughing in classical
>music.  I heard Kundry laugh, I heard the Pagliacco laugh, I heard Aeolus
>laugh (in the Bach cantata), I heard Berlioz' Mephisto laugh, I listened to
>fine humour by Satie, to grim humour by Shostakovitch, to sarcastic humour
>by Couperin, to strange humour by C.P.E.  Bach (a trio sonata displaying
>a dialogue between a sanguine and a melancholic person: very weird), to
>hidden humour by Josquin.  It was an entertaining and informative feature
>but it left me wondering: is there no innocent laughing in classical
>music?

Yeah, but it's pretty rare.  Possibly because most classical music isn't
spontaneously written.

>What do I mean by innocent laughter? The laughter of infants.

Very few infants, as far as I know, know enough to write classical music.

>Classical music is highly sophisticated art made by grown-ups who obviously
>can't laugh like infants anymore.

They might be able to in life, but spontaneous laughter is awfully difficult
to sustain over the (often) months it takes to write a classical piece.

>Can you imagine Beethoven or Wagner laugh? Well, I can imagine them
>Laughing about someone else (especially Wagner was very good at that)
>- but the both of them just laughing, in good humour, just because life
>is good, the weather fine and love a reality?

How about Beethoven's Seventh (the first movement)?

Steve Schwartz