Das klagende Lied is a work in which Mahler comes closest to the opera. This is because the composition is pervaded by drama and its elaboration in a text that regularly gets the character of a theatrically very effective dialogue.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was fourteen years old when his younger brother Ernst Mahler (1862-1875) died. The loss touched him deeply and gave him a gnawing guilt. A few years later he started Das klagende Lied, his first major work. Mahler himself wrote the text. He relied on a folk tale about two brothers, in which the elder kills the younger. Mahler called the work ‘My worry child’. It was his requiem for his brother Ernst.

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A listening guide of Das Klagende Lied –  Intro with Lew Smoley