The American patron of the arts Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge had commissioned the ballet in 1927 for a festival of contemporary music to be held the following year at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

This is one of the many classical epithets of Apollo and signifies the god's mythological role as the leader of the Muses and the divine patron of music and dance.

[1] The first ballet version of Stravinsky's Apollon musagète, commissioned especially for the Washington festival, premiered on 27 April 1928 with choreography by Adolph Bolm, who also danced the role of Apollo.

Ruth Page, Berenice Holmes (Gene Kelly's ballet teacher), and Elise Reiman were the three Muses and Hans Kindler conducted.

[2] He had reserved the European rights to the score for Sergei Diaghilev, whose Ballets Russes production, choreographed by the 24-year-old Balanchine, opened at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris on 12 June 1928.

The avoidance of any conflict in the scenario, of any narrative, psychological or expressive intent, was further matched by monochrome costumes for the dancers and the absence of elaborate scenery on stage.

The scenario involved the birth of Apollo, his interactions with the three Muses, Calliope (poetry), Polyhymnia (mime) and Terpsichore (dance and song), and his ascent as a god to Mount Parnassus.

Suzanne Farrell restored the birth scene for her company in 2001, as did Arthur Mitchell for his Dance Theatre of Harlem performance at Symphony Space's Wall to Wall Balanchine in conjunction with City Ballet's Balanchine centennial and Iain Webb for The Sarasota Ballet's Tribute to Nureyev performance in February 2015 (staged by Sandra Jennings).

Despite the popularly considered Balanchine-Stravinsky Greek link due to Balanchine's later work with Stravinsky scores in Orpheus and Agon, the music for Apollo was commissioned by the Library of Congress.

[12] In light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performing arts, New York City Ballet released a recording featuring Taylor Stanley, Tiler Peck, Brittany Pollack, and Indiana Woodward, filmed in 2019.