Composer: Born July 7, 1860, Kalischt, [now Kaliště, Jihlava in the Czech Republic], Bohemia; died May 18, 1911, Vienna
Work composed: 1901-04
World premiere: Mahler conducted the first performance on January 29, 1905, at the Vienna Musikverein, with soloist Friedrich Weidemann
Instrumentation: solo voice, piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, timpani, chimes, glockenspiel, tam-tam, celesta, harp, and strings
Estimated duration: 26 minutes

In 1901, when Gustav Mahler began composing Kindertotenlieder, he was single and not yet a father. He met and wooed the young Alma Schindler in November of that year – she was almost 20 years his junior – and after a passionate secret affair, they married in January 1902. Their first daughter, Maria, was born in November 1902. From birth Maria’s health was uncertain, and her father worried over her constantly. Sadly, his fears were warranted. In July 1907, four-year-old Maria died from scarlet fever and diphtheria.

Mahler was well acquainted with death; when the composer was a teen, he lost his younger brother Ernst to a wasting illness. Death, life, and their collective meaning, accompanied by spiritual questioning, preoccupied Mahler for most of his life, which explains his affinity for the themes and images in Rückert’s poems. Mahler chose carefully from among Rückert’s vast collection. All five of the poems Mahler set have an emotional immediacy that captures the fresh, raw, unexpected nature of new grief. Mahler also responded to Rückert’s placing the stories of these deaths in the context of the broader natural world. Mahler’s settings reflect Rückert’s unspoken reminder that death, however tragic or unexpected, is also part of life.

Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n (Now the Sun Prepares to Rise as Brightly) reflects a parent’s disbelief that the sun can continue to shine in the wake of such a loss. The musical texture is sparse and hollow-out, giving the solo English horn and horn melodies added poignancy. In Nun seh’ ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen (Now I see why such dark flames …), the parent remembers the particular brightness of their child’s eyes, and ponders whether such an intense gaze foretold the child’s untimely death. The poem ends: “We want to stay near you dearly/But that is denied us by fate./Look at us, because soon we will be far from you!/What seem now to you to be eyes/In future nights will appear to you only as stars.” The direct conversation between parent and child continues in Wenn dein Mütterlein (When your dear mother). A father sees his lost daughter following behind her mother, as she always used to do; the music features a walking rhythm and its basic themes suggest the simple melodies of children’s songs. Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen (Often I think they have merely gone out) juxtaposes the gentle comfort of a delusion – the children have simply gone outside; they will be home soon (set in a major key with sunny comments from winds and brasses) – with the cold reality of the final verse, “They have simply gone on ahead of us/and they will no longer yearn to come home.” The stormy turmoil of In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus (In This Weather, In This Bluster) amplifies the parent’s self-recriminations; in the last verse, the music shifts to an ethereal state (note the use of glockenspiel, flutes and violins) in which the children rest safely in the shelter of God’s hand “as if in their mother’s house.” Fittingly, this closing song is the only one that makes use of the entire orchestra at once (the others are scored like chamber music, using soloists and smaller ensembles). The shimmering D major ending implies the transformation of grief into a quiet acceptance of loss.

© Elizabeth Schwartz