Humour and Wit in Joseph Haydn's String Quartets op. 33

Author(s)

Mônica Isabel Lucas

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Artes
• Defense date: 2005-06-15

Examining board members

Helena Jank; Adma Fadul Muhana; Paulo Mugayar Kuhl; Amilcar Zani Netto; Eduardo Augusto Ostergren

• Advisor: Helena Jank
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts
• Indexed in: Base Acervus-UNICAMP; Biblioteca Digital da UNICAMP
• Location: Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Biblioteca Central Cesar Lattes; T/UNICAMP; L962h; Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Biblioteca do Instituto de Artes; T/UNICAMP; L962h

Abstract

This investigation proposes a study of the theoretical context that involves the works of Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), concentrating in the ideas of humor and wit [Witz]. This ideas have been related to the music of Haydn since his own time. Therefore, we selected some eighteenth century journal and magazine critics that involves these aspects of his production. In order to have a better comprehension of the eighteenth century meaning of these concepts, it is necessary to handle also other related notions: the idea of comic and the Eighteenth-Century visions about laughter, contained in works like the arts encyclopedia by Sulzer (1771-74) and the music aesthetic by Schubart (1784). These notions enables us to have a better comprehension of the eighteenth century critics involving the music of Haydn. They contain negative or positive visions about his music, and it is possible to attribute this visions to conservative, rhetorically oriented, or to aesthetic (then a recently created discipline) premises. These critics allow us to create subsidies to observe how humor and wit occur in works that undoubtedly represent Haydn¿s mature style: the string quartets op. 33 (1781) (AU)