Songs about Dead Children

	"Nun will die Sonn 'so hell aufgeh'n" (German)
	Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Rudolf Kempe (1995)
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Songs about Dead Children (Kindertotenlieder) - vocal cycle for voice and orchestra by Gustav Mahler to poems by Friedrich Rückert . The original Kindertotenlieder was a group of 428 poems written by Ruckert in 1833–34 ^[1] under the influence of grief associated with the disease ( scarlet fever ) and the death of two of his children. Mahler composed the first, third and fourth song in 1901 (he played them for his friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner on August 10). This was followed by a long break and the rest of the songs were written in the summer of 1904. The work was written for voice (baritone or mezzo-soprano) and an orchestra consisting of piccolo flute , 2 flutes , 2 oboes, one English horn , 2 clarinets , bass clarinet , 2 bassoons , contrabassoon , 4 horns , timpani , bells , tom-tom , celesta , harp and strings. The performance of the work takes about 25 minutes.