Songs of a Wayfarer (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen), Mahler's first orchestral song cycle, is a strongly autobiographical work. Set to his own text, it is a revealing self-portrait of the young man in the agonies of love, and a work considered by many to be the masterpiece of Mahler's early period.
The folklore idioms of Songs of the Wayfarer give way to the haunting musical imagery of Mahler's later style in the Kindertotenlieder...