Nonsense has been a part of literature since the dawn of history. The sensible, reasonable domain of literature is limited and subjected to rules, but nonsense casts off such chains. Nonsense is a game, even when it follows its own method. We enjoy escaping from the tyranny of anything that is considered normal, real and sensible. Romantic authors had a strong penchant for nonsense in their aesthetics: German playwright and poet Ludwig Tieck dreamed of a “book without any inner connections, full of contradictory nonsense instead.” The Middle Ages already cultivated a “literature of the impossible”: poems brimming with clear nonsense and onomatopoeia devoid of any meaning. Then we have a large area where sense and nonsense collide. One does not necessarily have to exclude reality: instead, it can be modified, contradicted, exposed for what it is. I will be reading texts mostly taken from German and Russian literature. And I believe that Ligeti’s magnificent études, in the hands of Fabian Müller, will provide the perfect match.

Alfred Brendel

The lecture will be held in German language.