Humoresque is a genre of romantic music

Romantic music

Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....

 characterized by pieces with fanciful humor in the sense of mood rather than wit. The name refers to the German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 term Humoreske, which was given from the 1800s onward to humorous tales.

Notable examples of the humoresque style are Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

's Humoreske

Humoreske (Schumann)

Humoreske op. 20 in B-flat-major is a romantic piano piece by Robert Schumann, composed in 1839 and dedicated to Julie von Webenau. Schumann cited Jean Paul´s style of humour as source of inspiration, although there are no direct programmatic links to Jean Paul´s oeuvre found in the piece.It...

in B-flat major (Op.

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

 20, 1839), and Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

's set of eight Humoresques (Op. 101, 1894), of which No. 7 in G-flat major is well known.