Ref David Barker's item on humour in Mozart and Beethoven:
https://www.musicwebinternational.com/2023/01/humour-in-classical-music-2-mozart-beethoven/
... there's another Beethoven one.
Prof Robert Greenberg, in his 'Great Courses' lectures on Beethoven's symphonies, suggests (well, flat-out asserts really) that the opening motif in the Second's fourth movement represents another sort of movement, one of the gastric variety from which Beethoven was a longtime sufferer. The symphony's Wikipedia page summarises it pretty well:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Beethoven)#Fourth_movement
'Musicological overreach' it may be, but it's certainly an odd motif, and I for one can no longer hear it any other way -- nor without smiling (whether that was Beethoven's intention is another matter!)
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