However, the singer with whom Bartók chose to premiere the set, mezzo-soprano Ilona Durigó, was unavailable at the time, as she was touring around the Netherlands.

[1] It was only on June 25, 1918, when Emil Hertzka, the then-director of Universal Edition, asked Bartók for pieces that would be ready for publication.

Bartók gave no explanation as to why he decided to drop the missing songs, but they were dated "Rákoskeresztúr, August 27, 1916".

Bartók only mentioned these songs again in a letter to Hertzka on January 14, 1923, in which he stated that he didn't wish the set to be published again, as the texts were "mediocre" and the composer didn't have the authorization from the writer, Klára Gombossy, a young girl Bartók became infatuated with at the time of the composition, to publish them.

16, this set constitutes the only instance in which Bartók composed songs from scratch without any folk material.