Program Notes, KTL

Kindertotenlieder

by Mitch Friedfeld

Nun will die Sonn' so Hell aufgeh'n

The morning after tragedy. In one of the bleakest openings in all of music, an anguished parent, accompanied by oboe and horn, greets the sunrise. But something is wrong: his voice travels a descending line. And when he confronts the previous night's tragedy, his voice takes an upward line -- "rising in semitones, as if with great effort," in Peter Russell's memorable phrase. A sunrise described by a descending line; a tragedy sung to an upward line. His world has been turned upside-down; he lacks the strength to raise his voice.

Mahler composed the Kindertotenlieder within a narrow key range, emphasizing by lack of tonal exploration its introspective nature. Nun will is structured in four rhyming couplets. "Alternate orchestras" subdivide them: all first lines have "bare" orchestration, while strings and a warmer sound back second lines. And so goes the parent, bludgeoned between grief and consolation. Note how the last word of the first couplet carries the same rhythmic figure that permeates the first movement of Symphony No. 5, which we will also hear this weekend and which was composed at about the same time. That movement, it hardly needs adding, is a funeral march. This rhythmic figure is followed by a plaintive horn phrase, after which the music collapses back onto the tonic, and the death knell resounds - played by a glockenspiel.

Who else but Mahler could portray a death knell with a glockenspiel? The bell not only takes the place of the expected gong, but inexorably reminds us of another bell: the one above an infant's crib. The glockenspiel is perhaps the most symbolic instrument in the cycle, as we will see in the final song.

Nun seh' ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen

Nun seh' starts with a fragment identical to the preceding song's last phrase, which also opens the Mahler 5th Adagietto. There's a difference, however, as Mahler never repeats himself exactly: the bottom part of the fourth-note chord is resolved in the Adagietto, but not in Nun seh', giving it a sinister cast. The alternate orchestras and another voice/horn duet appear here too. But there are contrasts. Whereas Nun will was structured straightforwardly, in Nun seh' there is instability -- changes in key, tempo, and time signature. A typically Mahlerian touch is the cycle's first instance of percussion, a pianissimo timpani roll. It's so subtle you could miss it, yet if you're familiar with the song you would immediately notice its absence.

What about these dunkle Flammen, these dark flames? The distraught parent sings about his dead child's dark eyes that will become stars in Heaven. Peter Russell writes: "As a conclusion to a song so permeated with imagery of light and dark, eyes and seeing, the fading of the last chord is like a fading of light and of sight. We recall that the last sound heard at the end of the first song, the fading chime of the glockenspiel, carried a similar symbolism."

Wenn dein Mütterlein

This, more than any of the Kindertotenlieder, is a male's song. It is the only song about a specific child; the others are about both children or either child. Mahler portrays the action of the mother - walking - by pizzicato bass notes and a steady tread. She appears at the door, and the father sings. But when he does, we see the awful truth. The father is looking not at her, but where his daughter's face would have been. Mahler constantly changes time signatures so that the feeling of aimlessness is even more pronounced. Combined with the steady tread in the background, the effect is disorienting.

This song will test the low register of any singer, male or female. Those low G's fall on the words Töchterlein (dear little daughter) and freudenschein (the gladdening light). In other words, the same note signifies "My dear daughter...the gladdening light (too quickly extinguished)." A postlude makes us believe the song is starting again, but the pizzicato bass slows down and breaks off; the mother has lost the strength to walk. The song ends unresolved, portraying a father too listless even to make a final sigh.

Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen

Mahler generates an unstoppable momentum toward an optimistic finish in the fourth song, the turning point of the cycle. This is the only song written in a major key (E flat major, the relative major of the preceding song's C minor); as a result, the mood changes immediately. The prelude has everything: lush or chestration, grace notes dripping with sophistication, a lilting beat that solidifies the unsteadiness of the preceding song, bringing to mind a Viennese ballroom. But as the singer enters, the pace slows perceptibly, hinting that the effort to resume a semblance of normal life -- to get out of the house finally - has failed. He can't live up to the atmosphere of the prelude: His first two notes are a minor third, undermining the major-key prelude instantly. And then we realize that the disaster has not been overcome: "I often think they have only gone out! Soon they will get back home!" The children are only playing on the hills, but these hills signify something else: Heaven, with all that implies.

In the first few lines are the words ausgegangen, gelangen, gang, and bang. There is also a rhyming relationship between schön and Höh'n. In the first verse the singer breaks off prematurely at gang, the orchestra carrying the tune for several bars. At the end of the second, the singer continues a little longer and the orchestra carries less. At the end of the third stanza and the song, two things come together: the orchestra and the singer end at the same place; and the key phrase, Der Tag ist schön auf jenen Höh'n - The day is fine on yonder heights (in Heaven) - is finally unified. The alternate orchestras are melding into one, and the parent seems at least able to countenance a normal life. But Mahler sets him one more test.

In diesem Wetter!

Recovery from such a trauma as the successive loss of two children canno t proceed in a linear way. Mahler, who in the Kindertotenlieder proves himself as insightful in psychology and human nature as he was in music and literature, knew this. For the parent to find resolution, he must pass through a storm. But this is no Disneyesque storm with gods hurling lightning bolts at drunken shepherds; no, this is a more serious storm, a psychological one - A Mahlerian one.

The storm erupts suddenly, with a sinister downward motif repeated in all stanzas. The singer begins, and two things having the most important consequences are announced. The more apparent one is a rhyme scheme based on -aus. In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus: in succeeding stanzas Braus is replaced by Saus and then Graus, giving the storm a new, more savage face each time. But there is something even more unsettling going on. In the first line, Wetter and Braus are on the same note. In the second, Wetter and Saus are elevated a note. In the third, Wetter and Graus rise again. The storm and the parent are whipping themselves into a frenzy.

The climax begins at the end of the third stanza. The entire orchestra rages, and it is well to recall how far we've come in this cycle, which began with a bleak dialogue between oboe and horn. For the parent, it can't get any worse: "They have been carried out; I was not allowed to say anything about it!" He is accompanied by the most ferocious music of the cycle.

And then, Light: the chime of the glockenspiel, earlier a death knell, now dispels the storm. But Mahler is not finished with us. The denouement is a consolatory, soothing lullaby that starts as the song began: "In this weather, in this rushing, this raging." But now these words are followed by Sie ruh'n, "They rest." The parent has been granted one last touch. To a flute line that recalls a child playing in a field, a butterfly overhead, the parent's final verse achieves resolution. "Frightened by no storm, covered by God's hand, They rest as in their mother's house!" We now see the genius in Mahler's plan: All the earlier, awful words rhyme with the ultimate consolation, Mutter Haus. The final lines, this ultimate clincher, are Mahler's.

The lullaby fades. It is getting dark now, but it is finally a benign darkness, announced with a chorale-like postlude, an echo of the lullaby. We are transported by an unshakeable modulation to D major. It is voiceless. The parent can say no more, it is all in "God's hand" now. A long, slow fadeout completes the song and the cycle.