Kindertotenlieder

The poet Frederick Rückert wrote the 428-poem collection Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children) in 1833-34, after the death of two of his daughters from scarlet fever. They became world-famous nearly a century later when Gustav Mahler set five of them to music. One of the themes running through Rückert's cycle is the fantasy that the children are still alive, as seen in this poem, one of the five selected by Mahler.

Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen

Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen,
Bald werden sie wieder nach Hause gelangen,
Der Tag ist schön, o sei nicht bang,
Sie machen nur einen weiten Gang.

Ja wohl, sie sind nur ausgegangen,
Und werden jetzt nach Haus gelangen,
O, sei nicht bang, der Tag is schön,
Sie machen den Gang zu jenen Höh'n.

Sie sind uns nur voraus gegangen,
Und werden nicht nach Haus verlangen,
Wir holen sie ein auf jenen Höh'n
Im Sonnenschein, der Tag is schön.

I often think: they have only just gone out,
and now they will be coming back home.
The day is fine, don't be dismayed,
They have just gone for a long walk.

Yes indeed, they have just gone out,
and now they are making their way home.
Don't be dismayed, the day is fine,
they have simply made a journey to yonder heights.

They have just gone out ahead of us,
and will not be thinking of coming home.
We go to meet them on yonder heights
In the sunlight, The day is fine.

Four years after his completion of the Kindertotenlieder cycle, Mahler's own daughter Maria died, at the age of four, of scarlet fever and diphtheria. He later told a friend, "I placed myself in the situation that a child of mine had died. When I really lost my daughter, I could not have written these songs any more."

Here's Jessye Norman singing the piece: