Originally titled Prelude, Scriabin was advised to change this unsuitable name, and he opted instead for the more poetic title of Reverie.

It marks his first composition written soleley for orchestra, with no piano presence. At its premiere, the work was encored - a significant moment of reconciliation between Scriabin and Rimsky Korsakov who conducted the work and had two years earlier criticized Scriabin’s poor understanding of orchestration in his Piano Concerto Op.20.

Intimate and dreamlike, imbued with a sense of yearning and longing, the work is not revolutionary but it already hints at the direction of later orchestral pieces, such as the Ecstasy poem Op.54.