The use of oriental themes occupies a remarkable position in Bohuslav Martinů's vocal works. Two works – Nipponari, H 68, and Magic Nights, H 119 – occupy a fundamental position in the undefined period of the composer's youth. It should be noted, however, that these two opuses are the only vocal cycles with orchestral accompaniment (in the case of Nipponari, a small orchestra) in Bohuslav Martinů's entire song production, and that only in these two cycles did he set Eastern poetry to music. (Miloš Šafránek also writes in his monograph about the cycle of Chinese Songs for singing with piano accompaniment, H 147, which Martinů apparently composed in Paris in 1925, but we do not know further details of the composition and the autograph is currently missing.)
Both Nipponari and Magic Nights are influenced by two contemporary phenomena – the wave of interest in exotic material and the popularity of composing songs with orchestra. While Nipponari would be composed from translations of Japanese poetry, Martinů chose Chinese lyrics to set Magic Nights, completed in November 1918. Its translations entered the Prague-German cultural circle mainly through German translations. In this context, we must not forget the influence of Hans Bethge's [1876–1946] collection Die Chinesische Flöte [The Chinese Flute, 1907], which contributed significantly to the fascination with Oriental poetry.
Gustav Mahler also chose texts from this collection. At the time of the Mahler cult in Prague, this composer, instead of the expected Ninth Symphony, brought to the concert stage a vocal-symphonic composition in which he used a retelling of Chinese lyrics by the German poet Hans Bethge. It is therefore obvious that the texts of Chinese lyrics that were set to music in [Mahler's] Song of the Land, performed in Prague several times from the time of its composition [1908] to 1918, became known to literati and composers alike.
Martinů used Hans Bethge's collection in a Czech translation by Vojtěch Kühnel. [...] The authors of the original poems were Li-Thai-Po (the songs In a Foreign Land and The Mysterious Flute) and Tchan-Jo-Su (Untouched by the Spring) [...] However, we do not know what links Bohuslav Martinů might have had with Kühnel. According to the available data, Kühnel did not publish any collection of translations of poetry from which Martinů could have drawn, and if we exclude the possibility that Kühnel published his translations as individual contributions in magazines, the most likely option is that Bohuslav Martinů knew Kühnel and asked him to translate selected poems. The fact that Kühnel was the brother of the composer Julia Reisser, née Kühnel, who belonged to the circle of composers who met in the Music Club, could contribute to this hypothesis. Any correspondence between Bohuslav Martinů and at least one of his siblings has not been found.
The songs are in open form, with mostly melodic motifs acting as a unifying element. [...] Magic Nights are the first songs in which Martinů prescribed a more demanding part for the singer, extending into b2.
The second song of the cycle, Untouched by Spring, was arranged for alto and piano in 1932 and incorporated into the cycle Two Songs, H 213bis, under the title Blossom of the Peach Tree "Fleur du pêcher", together with the song Sick Autumn.
Michaela Vostřelová. Stylový vývoj písní Bohuslava Martinů v prvních dekádách XX. století. Master Thesis, 2014, p. 50, 74–78 [shortened and translated by Jana Burdová].