Master/pupil

So, then: have you, or haven't you, seen the video of the baby trashing the Las Palmas bar? If not, you can have a look at the trailer, above: that's the filmmaker Johannes Nyholm's one-year-old daughter, dressed as a middle-aged woman, laying waste to a set in his studio.

Sure, it's silly - but its silliness derives, I think, from an insight: that the behavior of a toddler is not that different, at times, from that of a boorish drunk. Context matters greatly, of course: but it can be fun to be reminded of the substantial similarities that we sometimes overlook, or repress, in the name of context.

By the same token, though, it can also be fun to be reminded of real differences that we sometimes downplay, in the name of consistency, or fairness. In Beethoven's Chamber Music in Context, Angus Watson retells a story involving Beethoven, who attended a soirée at Count Johann Browne's house. While listening to a rendition of one of his compositions by Ferdinand Ries, Beethoven detected a mistake, and promptly tapped Ries on the head with one finger. Subsequently, the composer himself sat down to play a new sonata - and the alert Princess Liechtenstein, speculating that he might also make a mistake at some point, positioned herself near the sheet music. When Beethoven did in fact struggle with a certain passage, the princess (according to Ries) "gave him several not exactly gentle slaps on the head with the observation, 'If the pupil gets one finger for one wrong note, the Master must be punished with the whole hand for making bad mistakes."

According to Ries, everyone in the room then laughed. Dissonance can be funny, but so too are unexpected continuities.