Les Fêtes galantes

Les Fêtes galantes was posted as a ballet with a score by Henri Desmarets and a libretto by Jean-François Duché de Vancy. Desmarets observed in a prefatory note to his work, “I have deliberated for a long time whether I should leave on this ballet the title that it was known to have two years ago, before there was any idea of writing L’Europe galante. . . . Chance brought the same characters into the minds of two persons.” But there is little or no real similarity between the two compositions…