From the corny songs he sang to his brother, Robert, in the late 1910s and his complicated handshake in junior high school through to his teasing of John Corigliano about the cost of tickets for the December 1991 premiere of Corigliano’s opera, The Ghosts of Versailles, Schuman loved a good joke. Mark Schubart said that Schuman “knew instinctively that most audiences are deeply grateful for a good laugh in the midst of a serious speech.” Or a serious letter. Or a funny one, for that matter.