Musical Humor and Antonin Dvorak’s Comic Operas

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Antonin Dvorak was a clever and highly communicative humorist and musical dramatist. His masterful compositional strategies underscore, heighten, and construct sonic humor in his six (!!) comic operas. He crafts musical slapstick, satire, parody, and merriment using sudden breaks in rhythmic patterns, explosive harmonic shifts, excessive repetition, and startling pauses, as well as incongruous tempi, dynamics, range, and instrumentation. Dvorak also gives the orchestra its own voice, breaking the metaphorical fourth wall to reveal humor outside of the characters’ awareness. Narrative description and comprehensive music examples guide the reader through all six of Dvorak’s works in this genre, revealing a significantly under-appreciated side of the composer’s immense creative skills.