Many of the finest ballets created in early decades of the 20th century were the result of the commissioning efforts of Diagilev. Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé is one of many. Ravel (1875-1937) began work in 1909 and the score was finally premiered in 1912 at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris. The critical reaction was largely positive: “…we have long been used to Ravel surprising us, this time he fascinated us, not in an aggressive or strident manner but with an immeasurably charming, light tender approach which befits this kind of subject” – wrote the critic of Le Figaro.

Mercure de France did not disguise its reviewer's enthralment: “The score is full of the most miraculously tangible images (…) Daphne és Chloé is a true “music drama”, but by the same token, it has within it large scale symphonic units and coherence. Every detail of the music is in context, it is complete in itself to such an extent that anyone made familiar with the leading motifs would be able to understand and follow the stage action, even if they were blind.”

“It was my intention to compose a broad musical fresco, not thinking so much of fidelity to Antiquity, but rather to the Greece of my dreams, to the Greece that is depicted and imagined by French painters at the end of the 18th century” – wrote Ravel about the work.