Despite Ives' own date of 1901 for this song, assigned 20 years later while he was compiling his volume of 114 Songs, Ives scholars are more inclined to consider that this song was written three years or so earlier, when Ives was still at Yale and a composition student of Horatio Parker. The text is by Jean-Pierre Claris, Chevalier de Florian (1755 - 1794), a pastoralist often considered the literary equivalent of the painter Watteau. In style and in its bubbling, bright quality it resembles songs of similar emotional lightness by Fauré, Duparc, or the early Debussy. It is in the musical form of a scherzo and opens in a bouncy 3/8 rhythm, and skips playfully along until it reaches a trio section. Marked Moderato, this dreamier and more legato section is in 4/8. The faster 3/8 music returns to result in a conventional ABA form. "Chanson de Florian" is very uncharacteristic in comparison to the standard wisdom about Charles Ives, but it is an entertaining and attractive song.

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