THE HUMOURS IN MUSIC.

Evening Post, Issue 128, 1 June 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE HUMOURS IN MUSIC.

In denying the capability of music ' being humorous (says the Musical ' Standard) we do not deny its power ' of being appropriate to a comic ! libretto, but this appropriateness, we J submit, is not due to the fact that it conveys any sense di the definite ' humour of the dramatic situation, . ' but simply that it reflects the kind of ! emotion we feel after our risible faculties have been aroused. As an I example of this we may point out * that selections from Sullivan's comic [ operas played upon military bands do l not in the least make us laugh, al- £ though they may produce gaioty and 8 light-heartedness. The same kind -' of weakness on the part of music to r represent the humour of ideas found v an eminent example in Verdi's " Fal- a staff.". Tho situations in Shake- v speare's play are full of a broad fun, a and the characters are conceived with ® a fine sense of ironic humour, but the f: music, in our opinion, failed dismally l . to be really comic, perhaps owing io *l tho incapacity of the composer to be humorous, but more likely, as we 8 pointed out at the time, to the fact a that music cannot represent the ideas of such a masterpiece of farcical comedy. On the other hand, through " Verdi's works a stream of abstract gaiety bubbles and foams, and this feeling makes the music more or less „ in keeping with the whole tenor of j the play, w kiiout, however, illustrat- s j ing anjr one of its ideas. In this a respect, it is true, music can be made £, a most useful adjunct to a comedy, c ] and can prepare the mind for the necessary gaiety of spirit which such o j works should arouse. We expect that j r we shall have " Die Meistersinger " n( brought forward as a good specimen tc of the way in which music can really 0] be comic, but a close consideration of Wagner's works reveals the fact that the fun rests on a basis exceptionally favourable to music. As a matter of Q j fact a great deal of the fun of the v . opera absolutely deals with music, j and not with ideas of the material n( world. Thus in the first act we have really droll imitations of musical fl( pedantry, and one of the most abso-, a lutely funny episodes of the opera _ ( isßeckmesser'smockserenade, which, ( again, is really musical fun. The street row, on the other hand, though intensely funny when seen on the stage, would probably not arouse a single laugh if performed apart from ifc _ %