On May 15, 1913, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, just two weeks before the premiere of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” provoked a riot among outraged audience members, the Ballets Russes presented the premiere of another daring ballet, also choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, also conducted by Pierre Monteux. It was Debussy’s “Jeux,” the composer’s last work for orchestra, commissioned by the company director, Sergei Diaghilev. Though not well received, the ballet was much discussed in Parisian cultural circles, until, that is, it was eclipsed by the scandal of the “Rite of Spring” (“Le Sacre du Printemps”).

You can understand why “Jeux” (“Games”), at only 16 minutes, might have been overshadowed. Compared with “The Rite,” a ballet depicting primitive pagan dance rituals, the scenario for “Jeux” was fairly tame. A stray tennis ball falls into a garden at dusk. A young man, dressed for tennis, comes searching for it, joined by two young women. The mood turns flirtatious. The man dances with one woman and steals a kiss, rousing the jealously of the other, until he switches partners, almost provoking the first woman to leave. The sporting romantic entanglements continue until another stray tennis ball drops into the garden, and the three young people furtively slip away.

O.K. This is not too shocking. Still, dangerous eroticism lurks below the surface of “Jeux,” and in its subtler way Debussy’s music is just as radical as Stravinsky’s, if not more so. The 100th anniversary of “The Rite” is generating many performances of the piece this season, including several by the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, where Alan Gilbert opens the season on Wednesday night with a program featuring this landmark Stravinsky score.

Stravinsky and Debussy (who was 20 years older) were respectful colleagues. The year before the premiere of “The Rite” they played Part 1 of the piece in Stravinsky’s two-piano arrangement for a group of friends. At the time Debussy was composing “Jeux.” Stravinsky followed Debussy’s work and learned from it. As Edward Lockspeiser wrote in his important book on Debussy, first published in 1936, some critics “see in the audacious harmony of ‘Jeux’ the origin of the polytonal passages of ‘Le Sacre’ ”: moments where a theme is heard simultaneously in clashing keys. Lockspeiser went further, arguing that passages of “Jeux” also point “to the 12-note system of Schoenberg.”