In April 1915, Winnaretta Singer, Princesse Edmond de Polignac, commissioned Stravinsky to write a piece that could be played in her salon.

He created, rather, a new form of theatre in which the acrobatic dance is connected with singing, and the declamation comments on the musical action.

[3] This is a moralizing story, a farmyard fairy tale about Reynard the Fox, who deceives the Cock, the Cat and the Goat; but in the end they catch and punish him.

Dedication: "Très respectueusement dédié a Madame la Princesse Edmond de Polignac" Singers: 2 tenors, 2 basses Ensemble: flute (doubling piccolo), oboe (doubling cor anglais), clarinet (doubling E♭ clarinet), bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet, percussion (timpani, triangle, tambourine with bells, tambourine without bells, cylindrical drum, cymbals, bass drum), cimbalom (or piano), 2 violins, viola, cello and double-bass.

"[5] There are many discrepancies between full and vocal scores, particularly the PV's extra bass drum beat at the beginning, the study score's downbeat at the start of the allegro (not heard on Stravinsky's recording), the rebarring between figures 21 and 22, and the PV's missing third beat of the bassoon before figure 24.

Stravinsky first developed here an original technique of composition that was almost unknown in the European classical tradition, though quite typical of folk music.

The main features of this are the repetition of small, simple melodic phrases (called in Russian попевки – popevki), often in syncopated rhythm, with an irregular meter (changing the time signature almost in every bar); the multi-voiced texture is not a real polyphony, but rather a heterophony, representing monophony or a “ragged unison”, where the melody of one instrument is accompanied and embellished with the fragments of the same melody.