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When Maurice Ravel in 1909 was commissioned by the ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev to write a score based on the ancient Greek novel Daphnis and Chloe, he decided to compose 'a huge musical fresco, concerned less with archaism than with faithfulness to the Greece of my dreams'. Three years later, when Daphnis et Chloé was first performed by the Ballets Russes, it had indeed grown into Ravels longest work, playing for about an hour and requiring a large orchestra with an extended percussion section, not to mention a choir. The first production was fraught with difficulties and the première in Paris was less than successful. It was only the following year, in London, that the composer received proper recognition for his music, which Stravinsky later described as 'not only Ravels best work, but one of the most beautiful products of all French music'.