Background of Composition

The precise date and circumstances of this work's composition are not known. Fauré scholar Jean-Michel Nectoux estimates, based on its compositional style and stylistic characteristics, that it may have been sketched around the same time as Barcarolle No. 4 (1886).

It was published in February 1896 by Metzler & Co. in London, with whom a contract had just been signed the previous month, and in June of the same year by Hamelle in Paris. (Notably, Hamelle also published a collection in 1926 comprising Barcarolles Nos. 1-6 and all five Impromptus.)

It was dedicated to the rising German-French pianist Édouard Risler (1873-1929), who had studied in both France and Germany, and was premiered by Risler himself on April 3, 1897, at the Société Nationale de Musique.