During the late 1910s and early 1920s, the gestation period of Stravinsky's music grew longer and the peregrinations of movements from work to work grew more circuitous. Les noces, for example, went through three different versions over eight years, while the eight movements of the Three Easy Pieces and the Five Easy Pieces for piano duet migrated to become the two suites for small orchestra.

The Suite No. 1 takes the first four movements of the Five Easy Pieces of 1916 - 1917 and turns them into the four movements of the Suite. In the Five Easy Pieces, the movements' order had been Andante, Española, Balalaika, and Napolitana. In the suite, Stravinsky changed the order to Andante, Napolitana, Española, and Balalaika. Orchestrated between 1917 and 1925 for two flutes, one oboe, two clarinets, two bassoons, one horn, one trumpet, one trombone, and one tuba with percussion and strings, the Suite No. 1 represents Stravinsky's music in its lightest and most high-spirited mood. Although rhythmically syncopated, occasionally harmonically or melodically dissonant, and stylistically fractured, the Suite No. 1 is among Stravinsky most amusing works and makes no great demands on the listener.

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