At the time of the Boston premiere, Villa-Lobos said that he had written the work "for and in admiration of Serge Koussevitzky", whose Paris concerts he had attended in the 1920s.

[6][7] However, Lisa Peppercorn casts doubt on such an early date of composition, based on the fact that it was Villa-Lobos's habit to secure premieres of his works as soon as they were completed.

[8] Based on his detailed analysis of the score, Guilherme Seixas concludes that stylistic considerations do not support a date of completion as early as the mid-1920s, either, and agrees with Peppercorn's hypothesis [9] What sets this work apart from all of the preceding Chôros is its use of traditional motivic developmental techniques.

The motive that first appears at rehearsal number 1, for example, is developed intervallically, tonally, melodically, and—as in some of Stravinsky's works—by variation.

[10] Villa-Lobos here proclaims himself free of the strictly nationalist preoccupations of the preceding works in the series.