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