Since the 1970s, Karg-Elert’s organ, harmonium and piano music has been systematically rediscovered, but his song compositions have not yet received the same attention. Wrongly so, for his approx. 200 solo songs are first-rate compositions, written in a wealth of different forms ranging from through-composed to strophic settings. The editors Ernst Breidenbach and Markus Schäfer have also contributed to the rediscovery of these gems with several concerts and a CD of selected songs.

Karg-Elert was regarded by his colleagues and in the music world as an outsider: he was interested not only in the German, but also in the European avantgarde around Debussy, Skriabin and the young Schoenberg, and this aesthetic orientation which crossed boundaries met with opposition in the increasingly conservative climate of the postwar years.

Vorwort
Preface
Zehn Epigramme von Lessing op. 56
Als Prolog für den Hörer
Auf Frau X
Auf sich selbst
Mein Esel
Geschwind
An den Genuss
Aus dem Spanischen
Ein Unterschied
An eine sechsjährige Schöne
Als Epilog für den Hörer
Anhang / Appendix (Transponierungen für hohe Stimme / Transpositions for high voice)
Mein Esel
An eine sechsjährige Schöne
Liedtexte / Song Texts
Kritischer Bericht