Steven Martin ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>Oh yeah, his daughter died right after he wrote Kindertotenlieder.  Oh
>yeah, he knew he was going to die when he wrote Das Lied and the Ninth
>Symphony.

Just to fill our what Deryk has said, Mahler certianly did NOT "know
he was going to die" when he wrote Das Lied and the Ninth Symphony.  Far
from it.  The diagnosis of the condition which killed him (a streptococcus
viridans i.e.  an infection which can prove fatal when lodged in the heart,
especially a heart like Mahler's which had a slight valvular defect, but
one he could have lived with for many years) was given to him in _February
1911_ after a collapse.  Then, *and only then*, did he resign himself to
death which came 12 weeks later.  He had already composed ALL of his known
music by then, including what he left of the Tenth Symphony.

Tony Duggan
Staffordshire,
United Kingdom.