Called Sérénade pour le Sicilien, Charpentier’s score for Molière’s play is considerably reduced compared to the one Lully had written for the premiere of this one-act comedy, on 14 February 1667. The text set to music is totally different from Molière’s original and would even seem to be a parody of it: "Happy, alas, who can love like this" becomes in fact "Happy tomcats, how sweet your fate is". Even if the burlesque aspect of the Duo des Musiciens does not fit in well with the pastoral spirit of the comedy, it is easy enough to replace Charpentier’s fragments within Molière’s comedy.

Molière’s Le Dépit amoureux was premiered in Béziers on 16 December 1656 without musical interludes. The play was revived in Paris on 11 July 1679. In Charpentier’s autograph manuscripts, the last two words of the title, Overture to Le Dépit amoureux, were crossed out by the composer because the piece was reused in 1680 as "Overture to the prologue of Polyeucte for the Collège d'Harcourt", followed by several other instrumental pieces intended for performances of Pierre Corneille’s Polyeucte Martyr at the Jesuit College of Harcourt.