It was written for the Cambridge Greek Play production of Aristophanes' The Wasps at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was Vaughan Williams' first of only three forays into incidental music.
The complete incidental music is lengthy (about 1 hour and 45 minutes) and is not often performed.
Vaughan Williams later arranged parts of the music into an orchestral suite (about 26 minutes), in five parts: The Overture is quite concise (about 10 minutes) and is a popular independent concert piece today.
The year before he wrote The Wasps, Vaughan Williams spent three months in Paris studying with Maurice Ravel, whose influence is apparent in the middle section.
Although The Wasps may reflect something of Ravel, the outer sections are quintessential Vaughan Williams.