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This research project explores the interactions between music and clowning from two perspectives: first, by investigating the uses and functions of music and sound in European clowning traditions, and second, by revisiting the notion of musical humor and introducing the category of the ‘clownesque’ – taking Gustav Mahler’s Seventh Symphony as a case study. Clowning practices can inform modern instrumental music, I suggest, because of the cross-fertilization of ‘cultivated’ and ‘popular’ genres characteristic of this era. My musicological perspective on clowning will throw new light on this tradition; and, in turn, interpreting musical humor in the 20th century through the lens of clowning practices will emphasize the physicality of musical gestures.