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Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen!

from Ach, des Knaben Augen by Cliff Ridley Baritone, Danielle Marcinek Piano

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Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen!
Kindertotenlieder - Songs of the Deaths of Children
by Gustav Mahler

The music of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) can be heard as a bridge between the musical traditions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Audiences of today can hear in Mahler's music a surprisingly modern voice which speaks to them in terms they understand. It is a voice of great romantic feeling and profound sensibility, but also one of doubt and of relentlessly probed subconscious fears.
Mahler’s greatest song-cycle is Kindertotenlieder ("Songs of the deaths of children"), composed between 1901 and 1904. It uses as its texts five poems by Friedrich Rückert, who was driven to write 428 poems on the death of two of his children. Although at this time Mahler had not yet experienced the death of any of his own children, he was apparently moved to set these poems by the fact that one of Rückert's sons was named Ernst, the name of Mahler's beloved younger brother who had died in 1874. Although certainly very sombre, the song-cycle is not sentimental or morbid. In fact, Mahler chose his poems with great care, creating an underlying sense of lightness. There are mentions of the rising sun, the source of all light, sunlight on the hills, and in the last song, God's hand protecting the children from a storm. Remarkably, Mahler transforms an almost unbearably painful topic into an experience that is ultimately ennobling and transcendent, ending in a mood of serene acceptance.

lyrics

12.

Often I think they have merely gone out!
Soon they will return home!
The day is beautiful!
Oh, don't be anxious!
They are only taking a long walk.
Yes, surely they have merely gone out
and will now return home!
Oh, don't be anxious, the day is beautiful!
They are only taking their walk to yonder height!
They have only gone on ahead of us
and won't be longing for home any longer!
We will overtake them on yonder height
in the sunshine!
The day is beautiful on yonder height!

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from Ach, des Knaben Augen, released June 12, 2013

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Ludwig Recordings Delta, British Columbia

Ludwig Recordings is a Record Label specializing in the music of composer Christopher Ludwig and its artists.
Ludwig Recordings has an especially strong focus on Art Song.

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