Controversy
surrounds the music of Gustav Mahler, with one great example being his Kindertotenlieder (“Songs on the Death
of Children”). Mahler first began work on this orchestral song cycle in 1901.
An orchestral song cycle is a group of songs meant for performance as a unit
and accompanied by an orchestra. The texts that Mahler chose for his song cycle
were taken from poems by Friedrich Rueckert, who originally wrote these poems
along with many others as a form of mourning the death of his children. Mahler
felt a special connection to the poetry as one of Rueckert’s children (Ernst)
shared a name with his deceased brother.
Not
long after he began work on Kindertotenlieder,
Mahler met the woman who would become his wife the following year. His marriage
to Alma Mahler and the birth of two daughters fairly quickly would change the
circumstances surrounding his song cycle, resulting in a strong difference in
opinion between the composer and his new bride and a haunting story for the
Mahler family.
Join
me on Wednesday for more on the eerie tale surrounding Kindertotenlieder.
