[1] The work was first performed to great acclaim at the Paris Conservatoire on 8 December 1844, conducted by Théophile Tilmant, and taken up at the Théâtre-Italien and by Berlioz.
[3] Le désert was successful from its premiere and influenced the conception of works based around the orient by many other French composers.
Budden also finds the influence of the dawn movement of Le désert – which Verdi had heard in Milan in 1845 – in the prologue of Attila (1846).
[7] Offenbach wrote music for a 'parodie' of the work entitled Citrouillard au désert, first performed at the house of the Countess Bertin de Vaux at the end of February 1846.
[9] André Gide was fond of this "likeable" piece as a teenager, as reported in his memoir Si le grain ne meurt, chapter 6.