Haydn Seek-Humor in the Works of Papa Haydn

What constitutes a musical—or any other kind of—joke? Humor explodes our expectations and takes us by surprise. Three Haydn string quartets, including his “Joke” Quartet, provide an evening of ambiguous beginnings and fake-out endings; mismatched dialogues between instruments, misunderstandings, musical pratfalls and pretend memory lapses and digressions. What about those embarrassing long pauses, that daring modulation, that unexpected excursion into strange tonalities….? It’s all intentional and part of the fun! From the composer of the “Surprise” Symphony who wrote a cat’s meow into another comes a slightly tipsy “high” as well as “low” program of subversive humor. The audiences of Haydn’s day loved the kinds of things he put into his music, and so will you. Yehuda Hanani and colleagues will lead us through this night of musical comedy with their expert playing as well as comments. Call it a master class in musical humor. Hagai Shaham and Xiao-Dong Wang, violin; Dov Scheindlin, viola; Yehuda Hanani, celloThis concert is included in a season subscription purchase!

Limited tickets available (open seating) at the box office. Main Street entrance starting at 5:00 pm.

Location: Saint James Place,Great Barrington, MA