La cheminée du roi René

The title alludes to a Provençal proverb playing on words for 'fireplace', 'chimney' and 'promenade': the 15th-century King of Sicily René d'Anjou is said to have enjoyed walks in the winter sun of Provence.

[citation needed] The title of the piece can be found in a nineteenth-century short story on "Le Bon Roi René" and courtly love, "Le premier bouquet de fleurs d'oranger" by Louis Lurine for the literary journal L'Écho des feuilletons, published in 1853; the journal is a collection of anecdotes and legends, of which the Provençal saying se chauffer à la cheminée du roi René is one.

[4][non-primary source needed] Prior occurrences of the expression can be found in French dictionaries of proverbs from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

La cheminée du roi René is one of Milhaud's best-known works and is one of the most popular pieces of chamber music in the twentieth-century repertoire for wind quintet.

Belgian musicologist and biographer of Milhaud Paul Collaer writes that "among the wind quintets, the amusing La cheminée du roi René (1939) is especially worthy of note.

Statue of the Good King René in Aix-en-Provence
Mills Hall at Mills College , Oakland, California. Milhaud taught in the music department when the first performance of the suite was given by the South Wind Quintet in 1941.
The Livre de cœur d'amour épris of René I, illuminated manuscript by Barthélemy d'Eyck , c. 1460
16th-century lodge in Valabre [ fr ] called the hunting pavilion of Roi René