The title "Songs Without Words", chosen by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy for his famous collection of mainly vocal piano pieces, became extraordinary popular. Soon after its publication it provoked a vogue of arrangements of popular songs. Hundreds of songs for piano solo were composed, claiming to represent famous melodies without additional vocal- oder solo parts.

On the other hand, the different characters of tempers and the inexhaustible richness of melodies in "Songs Without Words" seem to...