Kindertotenlieder is a song cycle (1904) for voice and orchestra by Gustav Mahler. The words of the songs are poems by Friedrich Rückert.
Pencil portrait of Mahler by Emil Orlík, c. 1903
Portrait of Friedrich Rückert in 1864 by Bertha Froriep [de]
Gustav Mahler was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect, which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 his compositions were rediscovered by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century.
Gustav Mahler, photographed in 1907 by Moritz Nähr at the end of his period as director of the Vienna Hofoper
Jihlava, the city where Mahler grew up
Mahler was influenced by Richard Wagner during his student days, and later became a leading interpreter of Wagner's operas.
Mahler's home in Leipzig, where he composed his First Symphony