04/08/15 1

In 1845 Edgar Allan Poe wrote (in The Imp of the Perverse):It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the ringing in our ears, or rather in our memories, of theburthen of some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches from an opera. Nor will we be the less tormentedif the song in itself be good, or the opera air meritorious.Mark Twain wrote A Literary Nightmare in 1876. It's a story about an encounter with this contagious rhymethat occupies his mind for days until he manages to get rid of it by passing it to somebody else. Using thisas an example might be stretching things a little, but it kind of describes the idea of "an earworm."There's this Beethoven trio with the nickname of "Gassenhauer." That word means something close to streetsong. See, the third movement of that trio is a set of variations on a theme. The theme is a silly tune (Priach'io l'impegno, "before I go to work") from an opera presented in Vienna in the last years of the 18thcentury.Beethoven used that silly tune as the base for this movement because the damn thing was VERY popular. It wascatchy enough to be heard in the streets of Vienna, I guess it's reasonable to say it stuck in people's headsif you could hear people singing/humming/whistling it in the street.You can listen to that trio here (the silly tune is heard at 14:16, when the 3rd movement starts).Composers of that period very fond of catchy melodies.