This is a charming, energetic, witty, and engaging score particularly notable for a style of scoring that was unprecedented. Its sound has remained in many ways unique over the decades since its composition.

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) was turned down for military service during World War I for health reasons. Thus he continued a promising career as a composer. When he was 21, he had collaborated with the poet Paul Claudel, and in 1915, turned to Claudel's treatment of the classic Greek tragedy the Oresteia for Les choëphores (The Libation Bearers). In 1916, Claudel received an appointment as France's ambassador to Rio de Janeiro (then capital of Brazil) and took Milhaud along as a secretary. L'homme et son désir is one of the first fruits of his exposure to Brazilian culture. It is based on the African-based rhythms of the country, and is a precursor of his best-known scores, Le boeuf sur le toit (infused with South American urban dance ambience) and Le création du Monde (his response to U.S. jazz).

L'homme et son désir is based on a scenario by Claudel. It is an allegorical dance drama (he called it a "poème plastique") about Night, Sleep, Image (Memory), and Desire (or Illusion). It takes place in a jungle at night, ruled by the moon. The hero is the Sleeping Man, his natural primitive powers now latent. He dances in his sleep the themes of Exile and Desire. A woman is drawn to this dance. The Man unwraps her veil, enveloping himself in it as he does so. They move to the side of the stage as the Hours of Night depart and the Hours of Dawning enter.

Virtually everything about the music and the musicians is a new idea. Milhaud places the ensemble "stereophonically" to create spatial effects, and uses five groups of instruments: one group of oboe, harp, double bass, and trumpet; another of four more winds; a string quartet; a percussion section of 15 instruments; and a vocal quartet that sings without words, becoming an instrumental sound. At various times Milhaud either blends these disparate elements into fresh new combinations or keeps them separate, with their own rhythms, melodies, and pulse, to create different planes of sound. The percussion section often plays in remarkable cross-rhythms, creating a cushion of drumming under the melodies. Indeed, here Milhaud lifts the percussion to the most important role it ever occupied in a Western classical piece, entrusting important sections of the score to percussion alone, and several more parts where percussion is the dominant orchestral voice. The music is usually lively, with a haunting spirit of primitive mysteries, but ends in a passage of exceptional tenderness but for a few distant drumbeats from the world of Night to conclude the music.

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