This year’s appointment with the Gustav Mahler Research Centre Innsbruck/Toblach Conferences will focus on the topic of ‘Mahler and Humour’. The pivotal role of humour and irony in Mahler’s compositional practice and worldview is undisputed, and has inspired a wide array of articles, monographs and theses ever since the composer’s lifetime. Yet some facets of humour and irony still deserve more scholarly attention. As a rhetorical device, as well as a compositional attitude, humour can take a grotesque, caricatural, or satyrical form, but it can also serve as means of self-reflection, socio-political criticism and carry both tragic and comedic value in musical performance, as the diverse contributions to this conference will demonstrate.

A keynote lecture by Christine Lubkoll-Klotz (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) will approach humour and laughter theories from a broader literary perspective, while Federico Celestini’s (University of Innsbruck) keynote will focus on Mahler’s oeuvre and on the possibility of transmitting a 'heritage of motives' through humour itself. Invited speakers include Morten Solvik (Mahler Foundation), Lóránt Péteri (Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music), Renate Stark-Voit (Internationale Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft), Milijana Pavlović (University of Innsbruck), Jeremy Barham (University of Surrey), and Chrisitan Glanz (Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst).

The full conference program will be available in May on this website. The conference will begin at 9 am on July 17th and end on July 19th in the early afternoon.

Organisers: Anna Stoll Knecht (University of Fribourg) and Alice Verti (University of Innsbruck)

Conference committee: Anna Stoll Knecht (University of Fribourg), Alice Verti (University of Innsbruck), Morten Solvik (Mahler Foundation), Lóránt Péteri (Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music)