In the decade of the 1840s, Berlioz's career as a composer had seemed to stagnate in Paris, if not his work as a journalist and writer. His marriage, too, had soured—he separated from his wife in 1844 and established a household with his mistress, Marie Recio. But on his concert tours he drew fresh inspiration. La Damnation de Faust, for instance, was largely composed in the shuttle between Berlin, Dresden, Prague, and Vienna—to name only the major cities—over 1845 - 1846. He gave five concerts in Vienna during that tour, for which he composed and orchestrated Le Chasseur danois and the spirited bolero, Zaïde. The poem by Roger de Beauvoir (1809 - 1866) is a trifle, but its allusions to Granada, Aladdin's Palace, Cordoba, and Seville prompted Berlioz to Spanish color with a play of castanets, and a brilliant vocal style which he had not essayed since Benvenuto Cellini, completed in 1838. Zaïde was first heard in Vienna on November 29, 1845, sung by Henriette Treffz. Somewhat incongruously, Berlioz included it, in a piano reduction, in the collection of Feuillets d'album in 1850 with Les Champs, a harmless drawing room romance, and the railway cantata, Chant des chemins de fer. Incredibly, the orchestral version was not published in Berlioz's lifetime but was made available for the first time in Volume XV of Malherbe and Weingartner's edition of the complete works only in 1903.

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