ABSTRACT
The grotesque presents defects that are beyond control, such as physical deformities. The description of the landowners from whom Chichikov purchases the dead souls renders a series in which the grotesque is used for satirizing purposes. Satirical grotesque in music would be, then, a musical correlative of a behaviour or an attitude that can be described in physical terms, and that is to be regarded in a derisive way. The grotesque is transmitted by little hints, gradually transforming an apparently satirical passage into an overcrowded, hellish grotesquerie. Popular social dances are often used, sometimes distorted, in musical compositions the purport of which is the satirical grotesque. The incongruity generated between laughter and horror, the two structural elements of the grotesque, and its dependence on emotional impact, often causes aesthetic responses to the grotesque to be ethically problematic.
