The title of “The Joke” affected my perception of the piece heavily, as I would try to associate every change or modification to what The Joke actually was. My first impression while listening to the first movement was how the instruments engaged in an almost turn based, rising scale that seemed to evoke the idea of a conversation between people or even groups. Is one of the parts talking going to tell/play the joke on the other? Maybe. However, I realized most parts of the piece are not structured as monophonic alternations. At the same time I felt that there was the idea of a narrative building up The Joke. Although this thought might have just been me trying to determine The Joke before the punchline, it made me see every section as a point of relief that would make me say “everything is still alright, for now…” whenever a section I had heard before returned.

This idea of “nothing has changed, yet” was teasing me through every modification Haydn would implement in different section within movements. Emphasizing or contrasting a different instrument would make me tense, expecting The Joke to be explicitly present anytime soon, but no, just more repetition. The third movement took me off track, as the tempo changed and I became more involved with the movement itself, forgetting about my previous goal. The fourth movement brought me back to it, as it seemed fitting to its name: A playful melody played in a faster tempo than what we just finished listening to. “This is it, the punch line is coming,” I thought, expecting a drastic change to occur suddenly at any point of the movement. Then the last section comes and I am confused, unsatisfied, and somewhat sad. I can only think whether I don’t get it, or if this was The Joke all along. Did Haydn plan this string quartet and watch everyone in the audience try to get the joke, only to see that none of the build up was actually related it to it? Is he laughing at us? Did I just grossly overthink all of this? Whichever it was, I guess the joke went over my head…

Initially, I was thoroughly impressed with Haydn’s composition, more specifically, the seamless note exchange between the instruments. Goethe perfectly describes a string quartet as “a conversation among four reasonable people,” one in which I envision rhetoricians extending their personal thoughts onto others while accepting opposing, yet logical viewpoints. I think it is important to highlight the ‘reasonable’ aspect of these characters. While the quartet is mostly flawless in composition, with few dissonances and discords, the instances in which conflict does appear gives meaning to the word ‘reasonable.’ That is, they provide the listener with “arguments” and even “jokes” that occur between any two reasonable people. Notice that if these aspects were not present, Goethe would have described a string quartet as “conversation among four perfect people.”

In the midst of eloquent rhetoric, I pictured an “argument” at 0:59. To me, the quick succession of unpleasant notes was as if one of the guests had quickly and loudly extended a political theory, disliked by the other guests, who in response, react to the notion similar to how the listener did, with aversion. As though the feedback on his first theory was not enough, the radical guest choses to extend theory a second time at 2:18, hastily, as if he did not want the others to pose counterarguments, or in the musical sense, the other instruments to collaborate. The fourth movement highlights the most creative aspect of this piece. At this point, the four dinner guests appear to have consumed one too many drinks. They no longer introduce new subjects of conversation; they only alternate between The New Yorker’s last issue and Met Opera’s upcoming opening night. While these men appeared composed when the dinner started, they no longer make cohesive statements. They have consumed their night away and drunkenly pass out with their instruments in hand.

I really enjoyed listening to Haydn’s “The Joke.” The way in which Haydn used the violins and musical structures was suspenseful, unpredictable, yet simultaneously playful – all essential characteristics that encompass a good joke.

The first movement, “Allegro moderato,” was the most structured. Using the sonata form, it was as if Haydn was constructing the background of the joke that he is going to tell in the following movements. We are first presented with a lighthearted theme, characteristic of the movement, which is then transformed into numerous and unpredictable variations. Notably, before its recapitulation, it is presented in the minor key, adding a further feeling of relief when it is finally presented normally during the recapitulation.

However, the feeling of unpredictability returns in the second movement, “Scherzo.” I tried to predict what was to come next, but I could not pinpoint a musical structure that the movement followed. This movement is almost a constant development, and I could no longer predict when or if the themes were going to be recapitulated. Haydn adds several short cadences, which add to the unpredictability of this movement. We lose our sense of structure. It reminds me of the suspense that I feel during the buildup of a good joke.

The following theme, “Largo,” was perhaps my favorite of the four. More melancholic than the preceding and subsequent movements, it seems to be the anomaly and unfitting movement given the title, “The Joke.” It appears to be a dialogue between the two groups of string instruments. However, this movement maintains the characteristic unpredictability of “The Joke.” The movement switches from being very loud to quiet, and, like the preceding movement, there are numerous cadences, contributing to the sense of uneasiness. We wait for the resolution, which is somewhat achieved at the end of the movement when all the instruments play in unison; but the instruments slowly fade out, and the two short final musical fragments give little resolve to the listener.

The final movement, “Presto,” acts as the punch line for the joke. Unlike the preceding movement, it is fast-paced and, in my opinion, most resembles the human voice. It almost sounds like a laughing, almost out-of-breath, telling of a joke, as one frantically is trying to get to the punch line. It is in the rondo form, adding a sense of structure that was somewhat lost in the prior two movements. While cadences were dropped throughout the other movements, the most striking are the few placed in the last movement. I was continuously tricked into believing that the movement was over. I can imagine the audience, when seeing it performed live, accidentally applauding at the wrong moment.

All the movements are mercurial: No constant structure, theme, and mood are maintained. This is the punch line of the joke. We listen to the first movement and expect this to be a lighthearted string quartet, which is contrasted with the melancholic third movement. Using (and not using) sonata and rondo form while integrating the occasional cadence, Haydn seems to set up our expectations with the use of existing musical structures while simultaneously breaking them down.

John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes remind me of Charles Ives’ Putnam’s Camp, an apparent dissonant mess that is in fact a carefully organized piano piece. As such I treat it more as an intricate work of art that I don’t understand rather than consumable entertainment. While I can’t say that I enjoy this type of music I can certainly admire the creative spirit that went into the set.

Sonatas and Interludes is a 20-piece set broken down into 16 sonatas and 4 interludes. The aim was to demonstrate the 8 emotions of the Indian rasa tradition; in fact Cage was inspired by his introduction to Indian philosophy and music. Most of the sonatas follow the AABB form, like classical sonatas, and a specific subdivision named nested proportions: “an arbitrary sequence of numbers defines the structure of a piece on both the macroscopic and microscopic level, so that the larger parts of each piece are in the same relation to the whole as the smaller parts are to a single unit of it.” This explains the apparent randomness of note spacing in his sonatas. One striking feature is that his compositions are very clean and each note is very important, reflecting the avant-gardism of his musical expertise.

The Things our Fathers Loved is packed with dissonance and erratic rhythms, which leads the listener to wonder whether Ives, like certain German musical geniuses, was in fact deaf. Every line seemed to have a different melody and rhythm, and they seem to just flow absentmindedly into each other (one example is at 0:54). In fact, each line seems so different that they would make more sense as independent songs than as an ensemble.

The melodies, though sporadic and dissonant, are very complex. From earlier, we know that Ives is capable of creating polytonality with different “voices” in his compositions. One can recall the various discordant members of the marching band in the Putnam’s Camp. Here, I think Ives could be achieving the same things, adding a few dissonant melodies together to create (~1:12). However, I’m not sure as to how this relates to the lyrics, or whether it should.

I found Ives’ The Things our Fathers Loved to offer a very rewarding listening experience. I particularly liked the first half, in which the voice and the piano interact in a sometimes more and sometimes less consonant way. The general atmosphere of irresolution made the few moments of consonance more salient. In general, I found the suspension of tonal expectations particularly in this stretch of music to have the effect of enriching my experience of the music’s development. Perhaps this sense is intensified by the music’s tendency to move from the more dysphoric mood of the beginning to the ecstatic recollections of the singer.

This shift toward a more excited affect is realized in part through a more upbeat piano section that intensifies in volume as the piece reaches its end. At the same time, the piano part includes more and more dissonant chords that feel drive the music more at a rhythmic level than a melodic one. At the end of the piece, the mood becomes more depressed once again, as if from exhaustion. The tempo slows drastically and the piano part communicates a much bleaker affect.

Overall, the experience is not one of joy, though it is quite multi-dimensional. Ives’ polytonality enables him to express the whole range of emotions, as well as a kind of rich, affective ambiguity. His use of different rhythmic features in the first and second part of the piece is also used quite effectively for expressive purposes.

Listening to Gershwin’s original composition of “Summertime” (i.e. not one of the countless covers done in the style of the popular jazz standard), I was struck by how masterfully Gershwin was able to blend together various musical genres. This deftness lies in subtlety of the composition. Being more familiar with the jazz version popularized by Billie Holiday, the rhythm of the original composition really stuck out to me in that it didn’t have that same march-like, syncopated rhythm. The tempo is slow enough that at times in vocal line it is almost impossible to feel the meter. However, there are moments where Gershwin gently incorporates the elements of African American musical styles of the late 19^th/ early 20^th century. For example, in the brief introduction a clarinet plays descending notes in a minor key before alternating between two notes that a sort of “pulse” for the piece. This pulse is accented in between the notes by some type of chime that creates a slow orchestral syncopation.  That same pulse plays into the lullaby effects of the piece. One can imagine gently rocking a baby to the beat.

The mixture of African American musical genres with operatic/orchestral forms reminds me of Die Walküre. Like Wagner, Gershwin bases the opera on something culturally relevant, in his case an African American folk tale. In doing this, he is able to create an opera that is characteristic of both time and place – America, in the early 20^th century. He allows this setting to influence the music. In summertime we see this with the rhythm, as I discussed, but also in the vocal styling; the singer uses “blue notes,” and also syncopates rhythm at parts (like on the word “jumpin’”). Altogether, these elements come together in a very nuanced manner, creating a very distinct sound.

“Summertime” is the opening aria in Gershwin’s opera “Porgy & Bess,” which portrays several black characters living in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina. The song itself is a lullaby for the singer’s baby, and the lyrics speak of prosperity and security: “The livin’ is easy / Fish are jumpin’, and the cotton is high / Your daddy’s rich, and your momma’s good lookin’ / So hush little baby, don’t you cry.” As several other people have pointed out, the song is highly ironic: the singer and baby are poor and black during the Jim Crow era, and thus, the lyrics offer false comfort. When I listened to it with that context, the song sounded like a lament: the tempo is slow, the key is minor, and the singer sings at a soft volume for most of the piece.

In addition to irony, the song’s musical characteristics also give it a dreamy and fantastic affect–both reflecting the laziness of a summer evening (where the opera opens) and the singer dreaming of a better life. For starters, the opening instrumental music (0:00-0:21) strongly reminded me of Debussy’s “Prelude à l’après-midi d’un faune”—the key and tempo are indeterminate and free, which gives a sense of mystery or fantasy (like a dream sequence in a movie). Then, once the singing begins, the strings play a very simple rising and falling melody that lasts for most of the song (e.g., 0:22-0:34). The meter of the melody gently rocks back and forth—which is fitting, since the song is a lullaby. Moreover, although Gershwin uses lots of dissonance in both the vocal and instrumental melodies, it isn’t a harsh dissonance, like the “cry of despair” in Mahler’s symphony. Rather, it’s more like the dissonance in Debussy’s piece, which sounds magical and mysterious: for instance, at “And the livin’ is easy” (0:33-0:39) and “And the cotton is high” (0:49-0:57), the singer and orchestra drop into a dissonant melody, which sounds more fantastic or dreamlike than tragic or unsettling. Another such example comes toward the end of the piece around 2:46-3:03, where the singer is joined by a chorus on “by” (in “with your daddy and your mammy standin’ by”): the melody soars, then falls slowly, changing to various chords along the way. Although some are dissonant, the overall affect of this section is, again, dreamlike and fantastic.

Thus, while the lyrics in “Summertime” are certainly ironic and tragic in one sense, Gershwin also portrays the sleepiness of a summer evening and the dreams of the singer by employing a steady, slow rhythm and “magical”-sounding dissonance.

(Sources: Porgy & Bess libretto, http://www.philipp-harnoncourt.com/Libretto%20PORGY%20AND%20BESS,%20engl.%20u.%20deutsch%20(P.H.).pdf)

While this is a very short composition in comparison with others that we have listened to so far, I believe that Ives is able to pack a lot of emotion in to a small work. The piece is carried by only one male vocalist and one piano. The track begins with a smooth and gentle playing that feels as if we are being transported back in time to a memory of Ives’. The male voice displays a strength yet a great control of a prominent male figure in this memory. Up to this point it almost doesn’t sound like any of Ives’ works that we have studied up to now. Suddenly, there is a great shift in the music and it is much more lively  and you begin to hear a lot of dissonance and discord that are characteristics of Ives’ works. You are almost able to visualize this man walking down the street as he passes all the daily activity of the local people on “main street.” It’s as if Ives is taking us down this street with him. Then without any obvious forewarning we are brought back to a very emotional and nostalgic vocal, the dissonance ends and the track is concluded smoothly. Through this composition Ives is able to transport us to his town and give a great taste of the American society from his point of view.