In February 1956, Rowohlt Verlag published a new edition of the book "Das Lyrische Stenogrammheft. Kleines Lesebuch für Große" by Mascha Kaléko, which was so successful before the Second World War, thus heralding a renaissance of the Jewish poet's works in Germany. The popularity of the melancholy and cheerful verses of the "Berlin city lark" had not escaped the publisher Bernhard Bosse either, and in 1959 he commissioned Bertold Hummel to set some of these poems to music for his newly founded publishing series "Chanson, Lied und Song" (see: Kaléko-Chansons).

Bertold Hummel was familiar with this book from this time at the latest. It is uncertain when he set the opening poem of this collection, entitled Von Mensch zu Mensch, to music. However, in his work Ludi a tre for oboe, percussion and piano op. 29, composed in 1965, it is at the centre of the 2nd movement "Notturno". Here, the expressive melody is performed by the oboe.