The work was produced in collaboration between Gabriele D'Annunzio (at that time living in France to escape his creditors) and Claude Debussy, and designed as a vehicle for Ida Rubinstein.

Act 4 provides the basis for the fourth fragment, in the setting of the laurels in Apollo's Grove and a vision of the shepherd and a sacrificial lamb with the music, featuring a solo cor anglais "at its most suggestive and atmospheric".

Conductors who have recorded this version have included Guido Cantelli, Pierre Monteux, Jean Martinon, Daniel Barenboim and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

In 1953 an LP of music from the score was issued by Allegro Records, with the Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra and Chorale, Frances Yeend and Miriam Stewart, sopranos, and Anna Kaskas, contralto, conducted by Victor Alessandro.

In April 1954 André Cluytens conducted a full recording with the Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française, Rita Gorr, Solange Michel, Martha Angelici, Mattiwilda Dobbs, Jacqueline Brumaire and the Raymond Saint-Paul Chorus.

[6] In 1991 it was recorded digitally with soloists Ann Murray, Sylvia McNair, Nathalie Stutzmann, narrator Leslie Caron and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.