The Habañera first appeared in Ravel's Sites auriculaires for two pianos (1895 - 1897) but is better known in its orchestral transcription, which was inserted as the third movement of the Rapsodie espagnole. Three autographs of the Habañera bear a quotation from Baudelaire's celebrated collection Les Fleurs du mal: "Au pays parfumé que le soleil caresse" (In the perfumed land which the sun caresses). Ravel was undoubtedly attracted to the poem's exoticism and youthful sensuality, and many years after completing the Habañera he commented on it as follows: "I believe that this work, with its ostinato pedal point and its chords with multiple appoggiaturas, contains the germ of several elements which were to predominate in my later compositions."

Ravel was undoubtedly referring to his incorporation of a characteristic Spanish rhythmic ostinato well as its overall spirit of exoticism. The later orchestral transcription of Habañera remains faithful to the two-piano score, retaining its Spanish ornamental traits and languid dance rhythm while adding deft orchestration details: the pedal point passes from the woodwinds to the brass, and from the strings to the percussion, all within its relatively compact structure.

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