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Kate Molleson explores the multiple legends and lore of Igor Stravinsky, focusing today on his return to religion.

Stravinsky had grown up in a household that did religion by numbers – his parents weren’t devout but they stood by the Orthodox tradition. The composer drifted away from the church as a teenager and then, for reasons that are not entirely clear, made a dramatic return in his 40s. There was something profoundly rooted about his Orthodox faith. Something that connected him to the home he could never return to. When he reconnected with the church, Stravinsky didn’t opt for Catholicism, which would have made more sense in France. His friend Jean Cocteau had become enthusiastically Catholic through a haze of opium-enhanced mystery. But for Stravinsky it was the more austere rituals of orthodoxy and the sound of Old Slavonic that was the language of prayer, as reflected in his first sacred composition, Otche nash, from 1926.

Otche nash
The Sixteen
Harry Christophers, conductor

Symphony of Psalms
London Symphony Orchestra and the Monteverdi Choir
John Eliot Gardiner, conductor

Mass
IV: Sanctus
English Bach Choir
Leonard Bernstein, conductor

Ode
iii Epitaph
USSR State Symphony Orchestra
Igor Stravinsky, conductor

In Memoriam Dylan Thomas
Ensemble Intercontemporain
Pierre Boulez, conductor
Robert Tear, tenor

Requiem Canticles
Royal Flemish Philharmonic
Philippe Herreweghe, conductor