A remarkable song-cycle by the young Offenbach, set to poems by the most distinguished poets of the time, among them Gautier, Musset and Jules Barbier who was supposed to become the librettist of Les contes d'Hoffmann. A breeze of desire and elegiac melancholy flutters through all the texts, be it the pain of hidden love, human misery in cold winter time, the allegorical description of the seasons as beautiful virgins or the sorrow for the death of the beloved friend. First published in 1852, by Heugel & Cie and dedicated to the Princess Mathilde, the precious cycle is now re-published in a completely new setting.