With the Third Symphony (1929-1930), the ballet Bacchus et Ariane, composed between June and December 1930, is the radiant apogee of Roussel's oeuvre. Some other of his other scores may rival their piquant inspiration and motoric verve, but none approaches them for richness abruptly compact of poetry, élan, orchestral coruscation, grandeur, and sheer voltage. Conducted by the intuitively adept Philippe Gaubert, the premiere of Bacchus et Ariane, at the Paris Opéra on May 22, 1931, featured choreography by the young Serge Lifar, décor by Giorgio de Chirico, with Lifar and Spessivtseva in the title roles—that is, the makings of a major triumph. Unfortunately, in the critical carping over the staging, the power of the music was given short shrift and Bacchus et Ariane had but a short run. Fully aware of the worth of his achievement, Roussel wryly re-titled the two acts of the ballet respectively Bacchus et Ariane Suite No. 1 and Suite No. 2—the scores are identical—in which guise this sumptuous, glowing, rhythmically volatile music enjoys far greater currency as concert fare than it ever had as a ballet, which is puzzling, for it is so eminently danceable. From the opening propulsive bound, celebrating Theseus' slaying of the Minotaur, the listener is transported by a unique rhythmic vivacity of strongly accented, often enticingly irregular, and arrestingly shifting meters. For Roussel, the Dionysian is not (as it was for, say, Szymanowski) primarily intoxicating and erotic—Bacchus is a god of enchantments and compelling dynamism. And Ariane never fails to draw from him music of sinuous tenderness. Throughout, the score is rife with glowing melody and preternatural animation, couched in orchestral writing ranging from caressing sorcery to coruscating brilliance. The music rises to each moment—Ariane's salto mortale, Bacchus' kiss and spell, the procession of Bacchic worshippers, and so on—with richly compact, spellbinding invention. And it must be said that the final Bacchanale and coronation of Ariane ranks among the most powerfully whelming endings in French music of any genre. The First Suite was given its premiere on April 2, 1933, at the Salle Pleyel, with Charles Münch leading the Paris Symphony, and the Second Suite in the same venue with the same forces on February 2, 1934, led by Pierre Monteux. Of the two, the Second Suite has become the most popular for, while the first ends pianissimo, the second climaxes in a stupendously whelming Dionysian apotheosis.

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