The title is taken from an improvisational genre of Brazilian instrumental popular music that originated in Rio de Janeiro in the nineteenth century.

The Portuguese word choro (pronounced [ˈʃoɾu]), means "cry" or "lament", though most music of this type is far from being sorrowful.

The main theme, the harmonies and modulations, although pure invention, are shaped in the rhythmic practices and cellular melodic fragments of popular singers, guitarists, and pianists such as Sátiro Bilhar, Ernesto Nazareth, and others.

1 is formally and tonally both the simplest and the most traditional of the series of Chôros, consisting of a five-part rondo in an ABACA pattern.

[3] The substance of the work draws on traditional elements of the Brazilian popular choro, including the three-note opening gesture, where each note is marked with a fermata, and a four-measure introduction.