Carolina Summer Music Festival concludes the 2010 season with a concert featuring a collection of “musical jokes”, from Mozart and Haydn to Hindemith and PDQ Bach. The final concert opens with a work that is no joke, Mozart’s delightful C Major Flute Quartet, K285b. After that, things go downhill rapidly.

Program

• "Flute Quartet in C Major, K. 285b" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  
  
• “A Musical Joke, K. 522" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  
  Mozart was a well-known practical joker. One of his best-known musical jokes is a multi-movement piece, which is actually entitled “A Musical Joke”. Some of the humor is subtle to modern listener’s ears, although there are moments of blatant wrong notes, meandering trills, and finale chords that sound like a Charles Ives “raspberry”.
  
  
• "Ouvertüre zum Fliegenden Holländer, wie sie eine schlechte Kurkapelle morgens um 7 am Brunnen vom Blatt spielt" by Paul Hindemith
  
  ... Or in English, "Overture on “The Flying Dutchman” as it is Performed by a Terrible Spa Band at 7 am at the Village Fountain." A little known work by Paul Hindemith. All “mistakes”, every rhythmic inaccuracy, the bungling, coughing and are all meticulously (and demandingly) composed. The result may sound like a mess but it’s intended to create a comedy element and make the audience laugh.
  
  
• Quartet in E-flat major, op. 33, no. 2 (H. III:38) ("The Joke") (composed 1781): (Finale)
  
  Like Mozart, Haydn too was known for his sense of humor His String Quartet No. 30, from 1781, is nicknamed "The Joke," and it's easy to tell why. At the very end of the quartet, just when you expect the music to end, it suddenly starts up again; then abrupt silence, another few bars, then more silence — leaving the listener wondering if it will ever finally stop. It's almost a musical equivalent of tickling. (Miles Hoffman)
  
  
• "Trio (sic) Sonata, S. 3(4)" by PDQ Bach.
  
  This is a work from the composer’s “Contrition Period” (following his two earlier musical periods the “Initial Plunge” and the “Soused Period”). Peter Schickele’s biography of PDQ Bach remarks that this little-known son of a famous genius has been called”a musical blight”,”a one-man plague”,”history's most justifiably neglected composer”,”the worst musician ever to trod organ pedals”,”a pimple on the face of music”. We think audiences will agree that any musical piece with a tuba and tambourine duet is bound to be a good time.

Featuring

• Corine Brouwer, violin
• Jacqui Carrasco, violin
• Diane Phoenix-Neale, viola
• J. Alexandra Johnston, cello
• Bob Campbell, horn
• Joe Mount, horn
• Elizabeth Ransom, flute
• Matt Ransom, tuba
• John Beck, tambourine

* Programs subject to change.

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