Poème (Chausson)

[1] The original title came from the 1881 romantic novella The Song of Triumphant Love [it; ru] (Le Chant de l'amour triomphant; Песнь торжествующей любви) by the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, who lived on the estate of the famed mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot and her husband near Paris; all three were acquaintances of Chausson's.

[2] At a party hosted by the Catalan painter Santiago Rusiñol,[5][2] Ysaÿe and Chausson's wife on piano gave an impromptu sight-read performance of Poème; local townspeople who overheard it demanded it be encored three times.

Poème's formal premiere was at the Nancy Conservatoire on 27 December 1896,[3][4] conducted by Guy Ropartz, with Ysaÿe as soloist.

They were reluctant to publish the work, considering it "vague and bizarre" and of "extraordinary difficulty", and consequently would have "few adherents" (letter to Albéniz of 27 April 1897).

Chausson never knew of Albéniz's role in this episode, which was done solely to boost his confidence in his compositional skills (he did not need the money, as he had financial security through wealth inherited from his father).

[10] Poème is scored for solo violin, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B-flat, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, harp and strings.

)[12] Joseph Szigeti always believed "the typically Ysaÿean sinuous double-stop passages" in the exposition could not have been written without the inspiration – or, indeed, the direct involvement – of Ysaÿe himself.

[13] Antony Tudor set Poème as a ballet called Jardin aux lilas; it premiered in London in 1936 and was staged in the US in 1940 as Lilac Garden.