I had a brief interchange with a church organist in Aberdeen on Saturday evening. He, on hearing that I am a viola player, immediately told me a viola joke. But I have had it up to here with viola jokes. So, to use a grotesque phrase currently in vogue, I “pushed back”. What a horrible, pussy-footing expression. You hear it on Any Questions, when panellists disagree politically. “I would push back on that.” Why not just disagree? Not that you are likely to alter your opponent’s mind set. On the contrary, they are most likely – to use another ghastly contemporary expression – to “double down”.
Anyway, I pushed back on the viola joke. “Viola jokes are finished. Gone. History. Kaputt.” But no! The organist doubled down, and told me another, particularly tasteless one. Well, I can utilise tired, outworn clichés as well as the next man. I reminded him of the Church of Scotland minister who once asked, “What’s the difference between an organist and an international terrorist? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”
I can’t remember ever hearing a viola joke that made me laugh. A member of the RSNO, recalling my brief professional career, asked me, “When were you in with us?” I replied that it was so long ago that, at the time, viola jokes had not been invented. He smiled and said, “That in itself is a viola joke.”
People in minority groups are often subjected to so-called “banter”. And the viola section can certainly be a minority group. I heard Sir Simon Rattle on the radio the other day saying that as a student he put on Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony with one viola. As a species we can appear as endangered as the tenors are in the choir. But as a viola player I no longer feel vulnerable. That is because I now realise that the viola section is the power house of the orchestra. Cinderella has found that the glass slipper fits. I’m no longer offended by viola jokes. I’m impatient with them, and dismissive of them. I feel sorry for the purveyors of the jokes because they do not know that they are tin-eared.
Now talking of pushing back and doubling down, this is the time of year when lexicographers announce the latest linguistic trends, in particular the word of the year. In Germany the Jugendliche have gone for “Aura”. Aura is cool, the charisma perhaps associated with movie stars and rock legends. But German youth now apply it more generally. It has become a currency. “Thank you for helping me out. Plus 50 Aura to you! I slipped on the stair and smashed a cup and saucer. Minus 500 Aura to me!”
Here, the word of the year is apparently “brat”. In its restyling, it lacks a pejorative sense. A brat is a mover and shaker. He is looked on with a degree of admiration, perhaps envy. He is somewhat outrageous. Wicked! Not likely to be a viola player. Thank heavens. But I’m not convinced. A brat is still a brat.
I told a musical joke in my German class at the Goethe Institut a couple of weeks ago. I’m not very good at telling jokes. Like George VI in The King’s Speech, “Timing is not my strong point.” But it seemed to go down well. I hardly know why I am embarking on this iteration, because it was an audio-joke, therefore this is not so much the gag itself, as an explanation thereof.
Beethoven would fly frequently into terrible rages, and if his soup was cold, he would throw it over his long-suffering butler. Eventually the butler had had enough and said, “Maestro, I can’t stand it any longer. Too much Sturm und Drang. I resign.” Beethoven muttered, “What is this ill tiding that I can barely hear, like the distant, fateful tolling of a bell?”
“I quit.”
“You can’t. You must stay. You see, you are my inspiration.”
The butler sarcastically and sardonically harrumphed, “Huh – huh – huh hmmmm…” (as in quaver rest followed by three quaver G naturals followed by one minim E flat).
It’s the way I tell ’em. You had to be there.
jamescalumcampbell 