Composed in July, 1916.The original title is Nachtlied (A Night Song 2), but in order to differentiate it from the work with the same title published in 1914, in the edition published by Shunju-sya, they are numbered in the chronological order.The work was premiered in November, 1916, at the concert of his piano pieces.The program note for the premiere includes a short poem titled with ‘A Night Song’.The performance of this work (not A Night Song 1) in this concert is assumed from the fact that a short poem is also attached to the other two works (Yumebayashi and Minori-no-Namida), which were also composed in 1916 and first performed in that concert, and that these three works were published together in “Les 16 Petits Poemes” in New York in 1919.
As Goto, the Author of Yamada Kósçak.Tsukuru no deha naku umu (Yamada Kósçak.Creating, not Making, Tokyo: Minerva-Shobou, 2014), pointed out, these three works are published as ‘petits poemes’, despite their title don’t include the word ‘petit poeme’, therefore the composer wrote some piano pieces as ‘petit poem’, regardless of the remark to ‘petit poem’ in their title.The composer is said to have brought music and words close each other in this musical category
