Kindertotenlieder
October 10th, 2007 by Steve Bowbrick
Here’s something from the archive. A programme from Radio 3’s long-running feature series Between the Ears. I recorded it in January 2003.
This edition is pretty grim on paper: a kind of meditation on the death of children, putting together stories from parents who’ve lost children (including David Harrington from the Kronos Quartet) with Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder (a heartbreaking setting of poems by Rückert written on the death of one of his children).
I hesitated to put this one up because, speaking as a parent, it’s quite hard to listen to but there’s nothing gratuitous about it, it’s put together beautifully and there’s real insight. I’d like to link to the programme’s web page but Radio 3’s archive only goes back as far as 2004. Here’s the MP3.
The photo of Mahler, taken in 1909, is from the Wikimedia Commons.
