Its origins can be traced back to an incident that occurred during a rehearsal at the inaugural Aspen Festival in 1950, when Stravinsky was displeased by a surprise rendition of "Happy Birthday to You", a song with which he was unfamiliar.

In February 1955, Charles Munch, music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, contacted Stravinsky with a request for a brief orchestral tribute for Pierre Monteux's 80th birthday.

Leonard Bernstein and Colin Davis conducted the Greeting Prelude in 1962 in tribute to Stravinsky's 80th birthday that year; the former on the CBS television series Young People's Concerts, in an episode devoted to the composer.

One of the few events that interrupted Igor Stravinsky's work on The Rake's Progress in 1950 were engagements to conduct two concerts at the inaugural Aspen Festival in July.

[4] In 1954, Stravinsky received a commission from the Venice Biennale to compose a choral work based on sacred texts, with a premiere at St. Mark's Basilica tentatively scheduled for an undetermined date between September 1954 and 1955.

[6] As Stravinsky awaited confirmation from the festival bureaucracy, he received a letter early that month from Charles Munch, music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

[8] The Greeting Prelude—which is modeled after Anton Webern's orchestration of the "Ricercar à 6" from The Musical Offering by Johann Sebastian Bach[6]—begins with the "Happy Birthday" theme played by horns and piano, with strings repeating each statement in diminution.

It was played by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein on their CBS television series, Young People's Concerts, in an episode celebrating Stravinsky.

[18] In his study of Stravinsky's music, musicologist Eric Walter White called the Greeting Prelude a "brief jeu d'esprit" and a "jovial, aphoristic work, but rather too short to make much effect".

[8] Similar to what occurred with the incorporation of the song "Une Jambe de bois" into the score of Petrushka, Stravinsky mistakenly believed that "Happy Birthday" was not under copyright—an "expensive error", according to Craft.