1.Die stille Stadt (The Quiet Town)

Alma Schindler's setting of Richard Dehmel's Die stille Stadt (The Silent City) was written sometime during her period of study under Alexander von Zemlinsky, the man she described as "a chinless gnome" but to whom she was sexually attracted by virtue of his compositional abilities. Unlike her earlier Bei dir ist es traut and Ich wandle unter Blumen, Die stille Stadt is much more daring both structurally and harmonically, that is, it is through-composed, not strophic, and its harmonies include diminished sevenths in both the major and the minor mode. Zemlinsky's hand can also be seen in the unity of mood and effect, the progression from darkness to light in Dehmel's poem evoked in the slowly shifting chromatic harmonies. Athough not a particularly inspired example of fin de siècle lieder, Die stille Stadt was later published in 1910 by Universal Edition at the behest of Schindler's first husband, Gustav Mahler.

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2.In meines Vaters Garten (In My Father's Garden)

Alma Schindler's setting of Otto Hartleben's In meines Vaters Garten is her longest and most ambitious song. At 134 bars long and full of descriptive effects and chromatic modulations, In meines Vaters Garten was written during Schindler's period of study with Alexander von Zemlinsky, a man she described as "extremely ugly" but to whom she was sexually attracted because of his talent as a composer. Zemlinsky taught her to refine her exuberant and expansive musical nature, to concentrate on the overall effect and mood of the piece, and to unify her works with cogent thematic and harmonic plans. In In meines Vaters Garten, Schindler demonstrated that she could create an effective mood piece, but she failed to prove that she could unify her music and the song sprawls over nine rambling pages of imitations and incidents.

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3.Laue Sommernacht (Mild Summer's NIght)

Alma Schindler's setting of Gustav Falke's Laue Sommernacht (Mild Summernight) was written during her period of study under Alexander von Zemlinsky, "a really hideous" man to whom Schindler was nevertheless sexually attached because of his talent as a composer. Laue Sommernacht is arguably the best of her 14 songs, a song with an ardent chromatic melody and passionate harmonies unified through the sensual text of the poem into a potent musical aphrodisiac. It apparently worked on Zemlinsky, who fell deeply in love with Schindler. But she nevertheless left him to marry Gustav Mahler, a much more talented composer. Mahler, however, forbid Schindler to compose and she locked Laue Sommernacht as well as her other songs away in a trunk. After Schindler's infidelity in the summer of 1910, Mahler changed his mind about Schindler's musical abilities and not only insisted she return to composition but insisted that his publisher print five of her songs. Laue Sommernacht was the third of the five published the next year.

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4.Bei dir ist es traut (With You It Is Pleasant)

Alma Schindler composed her setting of Rainer Maria Rilke's Bei dir ist es traut (With You It Is Comfortable) sometime in 1899, that is, after her affair with Gustav Klimt and while she was a pupil of the blind organist Josef Labor. It is a simple but charming strophic song with a melody of small range, a harmonic scheme with no modulation beyond the subdominant and dominant, and a rhythm incessantly repeated in the piano accompaniment. It was one of her 14 songs to survive and one of the five songs published by Universal Edition in 1910. Colin and Dennis Matthews arranged the piano accompaniment for orchestra and it is in that form that Bei dir ist es traut is sometimes heard.

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5.Ich wandle unter Blumen (I Stroll Among Flowers)

Alma Schindler composed her setting of Heinrich Heine's Ich wandle unter Blumen (I Wander Among Flowers) on January 7, 1899. She wrote it specifically for her music teacher Josef Labor, the blind organist with whom Schindler was currently infatuated. As she wrote in her diary, "I've no idea whether it's good. I only know that love's passion went into it." She performed it for Labor at her next lesson and he judged it "quite good" and declared that "there is talent here." The song itself is short and sweet with a folk song-like melody above a very simple Schubertian accompaniment of little harmonic or rhythmic interest.

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