Chausson's best-known and most-loved composition which has become a staple of the violinist repertoire. Poème was composed in response to a request from Eugene Ysaye for a violin concerto. Chausson felt unequal to the task of a concerto, writing to Ysaÿe: I hardly know where to begin with a concerto, which is a huge undertaking, the devil's own task. But I can cope with a shorter work. It will be in very free form with several passages in which the violin plays alone.
