Ralph Vaughan Williams was approached to write the incidental music for The Wasps Of Aristophanes in late 1908. He had just returned from a period of concentrated study with Maurice Ravel and he seems to have approached the work as light relief and composed it with relative ease and speed. The first performance was given in the New Theatre, Cambridge on 26th November, 1909. In 1912, Vaughan Williams extracted a a five-movement orchestral suite, of which the overture is the most famous.

This revised performing edition is arranged for Male Voices and Orchestra and includes the Narrator's part.  The English translation is by David Pountney and the score is based on the composer's autograph manuscripts of full score and vocal score held in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.