{"id":244,"date":"2007-01-18T20:23:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-18T20:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2007\/01\/18\/kindertotenlieder-3-spot-the-ghost\/"},"modified":"2009-09-12T23:11:56","modified_gmt":"2009-09-12T22:11:56","slug":"kindertotenlieder-3-spot-the-ghost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2007\/01\/18\/kindertotenlieder-3-spot-the-ghost\/","title":{"rendered":"Kindertotenlieder 3- Spot the ghost"},"content":{"rendered":"

If this is your first visit to this thread, you may wish to start from the first song of the cycle, which you can read about and listen to here. <\/a><\/p>\n

One of the recurring literary themes of Kindertotenlieder is the notion of haunting. Wenn dein Mutterlein is the poem that deals most directly with this idea.<\/p>\n

These songs, and particularly Wenn dein Mutterlein, slightly turn the notion of haunting on its head- it is the narrator\u2019s wife, the still living mother of his children, who is described as a ghostly figure who he never really sees, and it is the child who is vividly described. He says \u201cwhen your dear mother comes in the door, and I turn my head, look at her, my glance falls first not on her face\u201d Later, he again says that when she \u201ccomes in the door with her candle\u2019s glimmer,\u201d it is again as if he is unable to see his wife, as if she is no longer real. \u00a0Candles are of course, often associated with ghosts in literature.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the daughter\u2019s \u201cdear little face\u201d is \u201cbright with joy.\u201d He describes how she would \u201center with her, slip into the room behind her as usual.\u201d He is more able to see the person not there than the person still there, and the song ends with him alone \u201cYou, too quickly extinguished gleam of joy in your father\u2019s cell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahler has constructed the whole cycle as an exercise in coming to terms with tragedy, and the cycle ends hopefully, and yet the healing that occurs only occurs in relation to the welfare of the children. There is never any sense in which the narrator of the family seems to recover. In fact, as we will see in the final song, the narrator\u2019s wife ceases to be a figure of the living world at all. She has instead become a divine caretaker \u201cThey are sleeping as though in their mother\u2019s house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Mahler\u2019s own associations with the deaths of a child in his youth seem to be all connected to his mother. His relationship with his mother seemed to be decisively shaped by the death of his older brother. How interesting then that in these songs, the mother is never allowed to grieve, and that there is no relationship between the parents, only two parents trying to connect to the lost children.
\n\u00a0You can listen again here in WMV<\/a>, here in QuickTime<\/a> and on\u00a0YouTube here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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If you\u2019re interested in Mahler\u2019s music, you may want to visit this earlier series on Mahler 2,<\/span><\/a> complete with extensive audio samples.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0c.\u00a02006 Kenneth Woods<\/p>\n

All rights reserved\u00a0<\/p>\n

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