Zemlinsky composed the songs in the early part of 1929 and orchestrated them in the summer of that year while holidaying in Juan-les-Pins.
[1] The composer used texts extracted from a Viennese anthology of poems from the Harlem Renaissance entitled Afrika Singt (English: Africa Sings), edited by Anna Nussbaum and published in early 1929.
However, he identified with the plight of black Americans as it reflected the post-World War I experience of many Jews in both Germany and Austria [4] The work was premiered in a studio broadcast in Brno on 8 April 1935, conducted by Heinrich Jalowetz.
3 and his opera Der Kreidekreis, Zemlinsky relies on tight motivic cells, static ostinato patterns and restraint characteristic of Neue Sachlichkeit.
[7] The austere, Berg-like, pared-down style is far from the jazzy, rhythmic "swing" he used in some other compositions from this period, developed after having conducted Ernst Krenek's Jonny spielt auf and Kurt Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, two operas that incorporate jazz elements into their musical idiom.