"[1]: 124 Richard Ellmann reports (from a 1949 conversation with Eva Joyce, the author's sister) that the chamber-pot connotation has its origin in a visit he made, accompanied by Oliver Gogarty, to a young widow named Jenny in May 1904.

"[4] Today, although the individual poems of Chamber Music are less frequently anthologised than the later Pomes Penyeach, they continue to have - as Joyce hoped - an accessible lyricism which has led to a wide-ranging number of musical adaptations, including pieces by Samuel Barber, Karol Szymanowski, Luciano Berio, Juliana Hall, Ernest Moeran, Ross Lee Finney,[5] Aleksandar Simić, Ivan Božičević, Israel Citkowitz, Robin Williamson, Dr. Strangely Strange, Syd Barrett, Oswaldo Gonzalez, Martyn Bates of Eyeless in Gaza, and Jim O'Rourke and Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth.

In 2008, Fire Records released a two-disc compilation featuring all thirty-six poems set to music by contemporary alternative acts, including Mercury Rev, Gravenhurst, Ed Harcourt, and Willy Mason.

On Bloomsday 2017, Node Records released Goldenhair, featuring twenty-one of the thirty-six Chamber Music poems set to music by Irish composer, arranger, producer, and pianist Brian Byrne, performed by Kurt Elling, Glenn Close, Julian Lennon, Judith Hill, Keith Harkin, Andrew Strong, Gavin Friday, Curtis Stigers, Kate McGarry, Sara Gazarek, Kristina Train, Jack Lukeman, Cara Dillon, Declan O'Rourke, Lisa Lambe, Cara O'Sullivan, Balsam Range, and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.

Byrne's music was originally a collection of chamber works composed over six years, which he then arranged for Goldenhair in a range of genres, including adult contemporary, jazz, big band, classical, bluegrass, and spoken word.