The song cycle Seven Serenades for voice and 12 instruments is one of many works by Ullmann that have been lost. Premiered in 1929 in Prague, it was performed again shortly afterwards in Frankfurt and conducted by Hans Rosbaud. Several years before, Ullmann had already written a song cycle with ensemble accompaniment, which is also lost.
It was against this background that the Ebony Band decided in 1994 to have a surviving song cycle for voice and piano orchestrated for an ensemble similar to that of the Seven Serenades. For this purpose the Six Songs op. 17 were selected, composed by Ullmann in 1937 to texts by the anthroposophic poet Albert Steffen.
The commission was granted to the 'master orchestrator' Geert van Keulen, the composer, former bass clarinettist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and teacher of composition and orchestration at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. The first performance was given in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw on 15 October 1994 by the Ebony Band directed by Werner Herbers, with the mezzo-soprano Ingrid Kappelle.
This ensemble version was published a few years later by Schott, and recorded on CD for the Capriccio label by Julia Banse with the Gürzenich Orchester under James Conlon.
A recording by the Ebony Band and Barbara Kozelj has been issued in April 2013.