1 Jan 1901 Jahr - Kindertotenlieder: No. 1, Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n (NAWM 165)

Beschreibung:

Composer: Gustav Mahler (1860-1911);
Genre: Orchestral song cycle

Translation: Songs on the Death of Children; Now the Sun prepares to rise as brightly

Cycle of five songs for solo voice and orchestra on poems by Friedrich Ruckert about the deaths of children and grieving parents. When Mahler chose the poems (1901), he was yet unmarried and childless, but was attached to the poems due to their intense emotion.

This Movement
The child died during the night, but the sun is still shining and life is going on; the grief is only his to bear. The form is modified AABA song form, but the changing relationship between music and text along with subtle variations in the music keep it fresh.

Text With Music
Opening line (Now would the sun so brightly rise) is set to a mournful descending melody emphasizing half steps, which have represented sadness since the renaissance madrigal.

For the next line (as if no misfortune had happened during the night!), the music slowly shifts to major through a rising chromatic melody over a reassuring rocking figure. The misalignment of mood between text and music makes it clear the a the sun is not a source of joy or comfort, but rather an uncaring and even mocking observer.

For another line (You must not give in to darkness by holding it in yourself, but must bathe in endless light), the music reaches a new height of dissonance, chromaticism, and intensity, suggesting that such advice could not be followed easily, if at all.

Orchestration
Often Mahler manipulates his large orchestra into sounding stark, empty and alone. The piece opens with a duet of horn and oboe, and this thin counterpoint between two or three voices at a time gives the illusion of them playing alone in a vast world.

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