The Library of Congress commissioned it, and it is dedicated to the memory of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, an American who did much to support chamber music. Poulenc turned the request down at first in 1956, then agreed that August, admitting that wind instruments suited him better than strings. He wrote it in Cannes between December 1956 and March 1957. The tune of the slow movement echoes his opera Dialogues des Carmélites, which he was still finishing when the request came.
Jean-Pierre Rampal, for whom it was written, gave the first public performance with Poulenc at the piano at the Strasbourg festival on 18 June 1957. The three movements last about twelve minutes. A corrected edition by Carl B. Schmidt and Patricia Harper appeared in 1994, fixing errors in the first printed score.
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