It was written in Rio de Janeiro from 1921 to 1926 and is the largest and most challenging work Villa-Lobos wrote for the solo piano.

[3] Rudepoêma was later orchestrated by the composer, and premiered under his baton in Rio de Janeiro on July 15, 1942.

[4] The piece was intended as a tonal portrait of the Polish-American pianist Arthur Rubinstein, who premiered the work at the Salle Gaveau in Paris on 24 October 1927, on the first of a pair of concerts devoted to Villa-Lobos's compositions.

[5] The (Portuguese) dedication of the score to Rubinstein reads, "My true friend, I do not know if I can have fully assimilated your soul with this Rudepoema [not italicised in the source], but I swear with all my heart that I have the impression in my mind of having recorded your temperament and of having mechanically transcribed it on paper, like an intimate Kodak.

Fragments of both themes are clearly audible throughout the composition, which reaches its climax only five bars from the end, with the right hand raining four fortissimo blows on three low notes, C, B, and A.