The idea of "La valse" began first with the title "Vienne", then "Wien" (French and German for "Vienna", respectively) as early as 1906, where Ravel intended to orchestrate a piece in tribute to the waltz form and to Johann Strauss II. An earlier influence from another composer was the waltz from Emmanuel Chabrier's opera "Le roi malgré lui". In Ravel's own compositional output, a precursor to "La valse" was his 1911 "Valses nobles et sentimentales", which contains a motif that Ravel reused in the later work. After his service in the French Army, Ravel returned to his original idea of the symphonic poem "Wien". Ravel described his own attraction to waltz rhythm as follows, to Jean Marnold, while writing "La valse":