Chabrier wrote his friend Paul Lacôme that he was damned if he knew why he was writing them, as the Enochs (his publishers) will find them too long, too difficult; but that he thought they might sell well, particularly to young ladies who play the piano seriously.
[2] To inform his publisher Georges Costallat that he had finally managed to finish the third waltz, on 3 September 1883 he wrote a charade postcard, thus: —Oiseau qui se pare des plumes du paon.
[4] The waltzes were given their first public performance at the Société Nationale de Musique on 15 December 1883 with André Messager and the composer playing.
In 1893 at the Salle Pleyel, Maurice Ravel and Ricardo Viñes played them to Chabrier who spent an hour and a half giving them his encouragement and advice.
Delage notes the many novelties in the pieces – chains of ninths, methodic use of pentatonic scales in the third waltz, and sharp and spontaneous rhythms.