After emigrating from Berlin at the age of 16, the Jewish composer Ursula Mamlok wrote Four German Songs in 1958 while studying at the Manhattan School of Music. Based on texts from Hermann Hesse's collection Vom Baum des Lebens, the songs reflect the uprooting from home. Mamlok juxtaposes Hesse's melancholy with an intensive tonal image which proceeds from expressionism with short motifs and tonal transgression, yet ventures into new spheres of expression.