Emma Johnson
Comedy Classical
Comedy Classical is a talk about the techniques composers use to make us laugh.
A spontaneous chuckle form the audience during a concert got Emma thinking about the comic moments in music - how do composers make us laugh? With the aid of video clips, audio and the odd toot from the clarinet, Emma explores humour in music in this short talk.
We look at snippets of the classical cannon from Mozart's Musical Joke, to the Carnival of the Animals, to Malcolm Arnold's Grand Overture for Three Vacuum Cleaners, a Floor Polisher and Four Rifles, taking in along the way footage of Charlie Chaplin, Dudley Moore and Victor Hochhauser amongst others.
“‘Playful Classical’ proved such a winner for our festival audience and I can only think it gave people an opportunity both to think differently about music in general and composers in particular, but it also to give them a good few chuckles in just the way that had inspired the show in the first place.”