An Old Song [H 74], together with the Song on an Old Spanish Text [H 87] (1914), belongs to the numerous vocal miniatures that Martinů devoted himself to composing in his twenties. They represent the more “traditionalist” pole of his composing at the time, but at the same time they are at odds in their individual ways with the compositional techniques that the young composer, who wanted to be à jour, applied much more intensively in his “experimental” compositions, brought to life by his fascination with Debussy's music.
The stylization of the piano accompaniment in the second strophe of An Old Song, H 74, (Moderato) follows the impressionistic scores of Martinů at the time, with their strings and woodwinds often creating whole expansive (even tediously expansive) areas with similar rapid alternation of two notes in small rhythmic values, the result of a simplistic understanding of impressionism and its refined sonorities. Also, the frequent juxtaposition of major and minor chords, accentuated by their tertian position, signals one of the compositional details Martinů carried from his youth into his mature work.
Iša Popelka, Bohuslav Martinů: skladby pro Poličku. Praha: Supraphon, 1973, s. 12–13.