Songs on the Death of Children is the grim-sounding title of an installation by acclaimed German artist Mariele Neudecker, on show at Salts Mill from February 11.

Itis based on the song cycle by Gustav Mahler, entitled Kindertotenlieder, which he composed between 1901 and 1904. The first performance was on January 29, 1905, in Vienna, with Mahler conducting.

Mahler based his song cycle on five poems chosen from 425, all on the theme of the death of children, by Friedrich Ruckert, who wrote the poems in an intense outpouring of grief from 1833-34 following the death of two of his children in 16 days.

Four years after Mahler completed the song cycle, his four-year-old daughter Maria die of scarlet fever.

"When I really lost my daughter I could not have written these songs any more, " the distraught composer wrote to a friend.

To mark the opening of the Neudecker exhibition, Opera North will be performing the Mahler song cycle before a specially invited audience on the evening of February 11.

It will be only the third occasion since the mill reopened in November 1987 that the work of a particular artist has been highlightedwith a show. Simon Palmer, the Yorkshire landscape painter, had a show of his own. Usually, however, the mill is devoted exclusively to the works of David Hockney.

Dominic Gray, Opera North's director of projects, explained why the mill accepted the installation.

"Maggie Silver, who runs the place, said she felt she owed a debt of gratitude to Opera North for doing West Side Story at the mill in 1988, " Dominic said. "She felt it was payback time. If it had not been Opera North she said she would have said 'no'.

"They have bent over backward to make it happen. We have all their technicians and carpenters getting it ready.

"There are five rooms, each one about the size of a small bedroom, one for each song. The words of each song are on one of the walls.

On the other is a film inspired by the music. Each song is a recording of Kathleen Ferrier.

"The installation was actually shown in York last year. We found that people would sometimes spend 20 to 30 minutes in one room and then walk right through another room without paying much attention.

"This is a very serious subject.

Partly because Mariele is German, I suspect, the material is treated with enormous respect, " he said.

Landscape is one of her specialities, and Mahler's music is very suggestive of mountains, lakes, high summer and a beauty that was soon to be destroyed by years of war. Millions of children were to perish, either by accident or design, between 1914 and 1945.

The late Kathleen Ferrier had a mellifluous but mournful voice suitable for a song cycle such as the Kindertotenlieder.

Mariele Neudecker, born in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1965, has lived and worked in the UK since 1985. Based in Bristol, she specialises in the use of film, photography, sculpture and light boxes.

Winterreise, A Winter's Journey, a previous work she did for The Contemporary Art Society, for Leeds City Art Gallery, consisted of 24 short films, using locations such as the Shetland Islands, Helsinki, Oslo and St Petersburg.

It was based on Schubert's most famous song cycle about an encounter with death on a mountainous wintry road.

Kinder totenlieder runs from February 11 to April 23 in Gallery II at Salts Mill in Saltaire. The show is open weekdays from 10am to 5.30pm and at weekends from 10am to 6pm. Admission is free.