Weber composed the Rondo Brillante in E-flat major in 1819, at a time when his work on Der Freischütz was interrupted for various reasons. Despite some personal difficulties, he became immersed in composition and within a short time composed not only the Rondo Brillante, but also the Aufforderung zum Tanze ("The Invitation to the Dance"), the Eight Pieces, Op. 60 for piano duet, and the companion piece to the Rondo, the Polacca Brillante. All these pieces are virtuosic works for the piano and demonstrate a new direction in Weber's music.

The Rondo Brillante follows the form indicated in the title, and the transitions from the episodes back to the principal theme are among the more engaging features of the work. In its various returns, the rondo theme takes on a different character as Weber attempts modal shifts, fragmentation, and other manipulations of the idea. As a piece that bears the subtitle "Le Gaité" (just as the companion Pollaca has the subtitle "Le Hilarité), the extroverted mood of the piece anticipates the music he would compose in the Piano Sonata, no. 4.

The music is idiomatic for piano, and it would be difficult to imagine a successful arrangement of the Rondo Brillante into a orchestral work, as occurred with the Aufforderung zum Tanze. Instead, it is a work that requires a performer with full command of the instrument in order to execute the technical passages and also to introduce the nuances that connect the various sections of the work. It is a piece that Franz Liszt performed later in the century and also published in his own edition.

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