In this dance poem from 1919‒20, Ravel seized the opportunity to complete an unfinished project of his. Ever since 1906, he had been engaged with developing a waltz series titled Vienne, which would have evoked the atmosphere of the imperial Austro-Hungarian capital. By 1914, he had created an extensive outline for the future composition, but World War One made continued work on it impossible. Fortunately, however, Sergei Diaghilev commissioned a ballet from Ravel in 1919, and the composer was able to resume work on his earlier plan. The Russian ballet director, nevertheless, was disappointed with La Valse, failing to recognise the fleeting apparitions, the vision of an irreversibly vanishing era, the maddening passion of the waltz, the release of otherworldly emotions and the haunting vortex of final annihilation. Instead, Diaghilev construed it as a series of waltzes that, while cleverly assembled to fit with each other, were unsuitable for developing a story on the stage. Although the ballet première never took place, Ravel was vindicated by the success of the concert version, and the piece was even received favourably when it was performed in Vienna in December 1920.