Composed in 1924 as incidental music to Hungarian dramatist Lengyel's (1880-1974) drama "The Miraculous Mandarin - pantomime grotesque -", it was not performed in its original form for many years after its premiere in Cologne and a second performance in Prague (both of which were canceled without having met their scheduled runs), partly because of the overly graphic script. Bart?k was particularly concerned about the fact that the work was not performed on stage in his native Budapest, and proposed to his publishers to produce a concert version, which resulted in the 'suite'. Unlike the customary suite, which is made up of independent pieces taken from ballet music, etc., the suite is in the style of an 'excerpt', with two-thirds of the entire work performed as is (with a few shortcuts) and a new coda added. The second half of the piece is omitted entirely, so the story does not reach its conclusion, but it could be interpreted as the composer's wish to move away from the controversial script.