Normative Wit

Abstract

This article approaches Haydn’s treatment of sonata form from the perspective of the eighteenth-century listener, asking: if a moment is allegedly “witty” according to modern analysts, would Haydn’s contemporary audience have heard it as such? Eighteenth-century wit is a two-sided coin: wit does involve an aspect of surprise or deception, a breaking of understood norms; however, wit must also involve an unsuspected congruity, a larger-scale connection created only by breaking the aforementioned norm. Taking this as my starting point, I provide detailed analyses of the first movements of Haydn’s “Military” Symphony no. 100 and String Quartet in D major, op. 33 no. 6. Compared to the expectations set forth by each exposition, Haydn has recomposed each piece’s respective recapitulation in a significant way. I argue that these pieces are witty in the eighteenth-century sense of the term but not in the sense that the term has been used by recent scholars such as Hepokoski and Darcy, who emphasize the disruptive aspects of wit. Ultimately, I suggest that Haydn can be witty without necessarily being deceptive; wit can involve establishing a kind of unexpected coherence that binds together the recapitulation and another section of a sonata form.

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