Hummel wrote this song cycle in the last months of his life and called it his ''swan-song''. In the light of this, his selection of poems is highly unusual: the composer did not focus on qualities such as the wisdom of age and detachment from worldly affairs, but instead chose lines rich in scepticism and a mocking vein of humour, this can be heard particularly in the last song, where we hear: ''My dear boy, everything that people say is more or less a pack of lies”'' The music, which is delicately worked through in both the voice and piano parts, is vividly effective for performers and audience alike.