We've had musical humor in the CCM several times in the past, both the intentional, such as the Borge excerpt, and the sadly unintentional such as the infamous Ricci recording or the ever-popular Florence Foster Jenkins. This month, we'll return to the latter type.

Albrechtsberger (1736-1809) has taken his place in music history, of course, for one thing of note; but that one thing is a doozy: he was Beethoven's counterpoint teacher for a year and a half, and met with his student three times a week. Renowned as a great contrapuntalist, he did not merely teach Beethoven Fuxian species counterpoint, but rather gave him thorough tuition in all manner of counterpoint; as Grove puts it, "...not only simple counterpoint but contrapuntal exercises in free writing, in imitation, in two-, three- and four-part fugue, choral fugue, double counterpoint at the different intervals, double fugue, triple counterpoint and canon." And, as a composer respected by (and friends with) Michael and Joseph Haydn, and Mozart, among others, it would be a mistake to a priori consider him some hack who happened to have had a great student. On the contrary, all evidence indicates that Albrechtsberger was certainly pivotal in Beethoven's development and, indeed, might have been his single most important teacher, even if he was, apparently, a little on the dry side. And, he was a gifted composer.

With this backdrop then, it is wonderfully silly, surprising, and jawdropping (pardon the pun) to learn that Albrechtsberger wrote not one, not two, but perhaps as many as seven concerti for the Jew's harp. The fun part is that there is not even the hint of irony in them. They have full orchestra tutti expositions, cadential formulae, and then....the Jew's harp! And, if you order now, he throws in a mandora (a type of lute) to help along. For myself, I find it inspiring, and can't wait to write my next chamber work for Jew's Harp, spoons, jug, and vibraslap, with obbligato flexatone.