Igor Stravinsky — Famous Works

Igor Stravinsky — Famous Works
From the Russian ballets and neoclassical works to the late sacred scores, Stravinsky continually reimagined the relationships between rhythm, instrumental colour and musical form.

In The Rite of Spring, a chord is repeated insistently while shifting accents unsettle our sense of what should come next. In Apollo, dance finds another kind of expression in the lucid lines of the strings. In the late Requiem Canticles, funeral prayer is concentrated into brief episodes in which even silence carries weight. These markedly different sound worlds belong to Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971), a composer who continually reconsidered how rhythm, instrumental colour and the placement of phrases could shape a musical work.

His output is generally approached through three broad phases: the Russian period, the neoclassical turn and his later engagement with serial composition, in which ordered sequences of pitches and their transformations provide a basis for musical development. This division offers useful orientation, although individual works often bring different concerns together. Les Noces, deeply rooted in Russian folk tradition, reached completion after the neoclassical Pulcinella had already been performed. In Agon, historical dance forms encounter serial procedures. Through these transformations, the incisiveness of Stravinsky’s rhythmic thinking and his attention to musical detail remain unmistakable.

Ballet occupies a central place in this journey, but his output extends much further: into opera and music theatre, symphonic and concertante music, small instrumental ensembles, piano music and sacred vocal composition. The selection below brings together important landmarks across these areas. Dates refer to composition or completion; where a later version has particular significance, it is distinguished from the original.

Ballets: From Russian Fairy Tale to Abstract Movement

Ballet allowed Stravinsky to test musical ideas in direct relation to the body and the stage. His collaboration with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes brought Russian traditions into contact with the artistic experiments of Paris. Later, his long association with George Balanchine revealed how dance could follow the proportions, contrasts and inner movements of the music itself, even without a narrative plot.

  • The Firebird — L’Oiseau de feu (1909–1910). Stravinsky’s first major ballet for Diaghilev opened in Paris on 25 June 1910, with choreography by Michel Fokine. Russian fairy tale comes alive through a richly coloured orchestra that distinguishes the human characters from supernatural forces. The legacy of his studies with Rimsky-Korsakov is already joined by a personal command of rhythmic tension and dramatic economy. The concert suites of 1911, 1919 and 1945 offer different selections and reworkings of music from the complete ballet, each with its own balance and orchestral character.
  • Petrushka (1910–1911; revised 1946–1947). At a fair in St Petersburg, three puppets come to life and a public celebration opens onto a private drama. Folk melodies, dances and contrasting musical scenes form a vivid collage, with the piano playing an unusually active role within the orchestra. The celebrated “Petrushka chord”, superimposing C-major and F-sharp-major triads, gives the protagonist an immediately recognisable, unsettled musical presence. The later revision substantially changes the orchestration and numerous details of the score, offering another perspective on the ballet’s familiar sound world.
  • The Rite of Spring — Le Sacre du printemps (1911–1913). These “pictures from pagan Russia” centre on nature’s renewal and the sacrifice of a young woman chosen by the community. Shifting accents, persistent rhythmic patterns and dense sonorities keep the listener constantly alert. Repetition makes the pulse physically tangible, while unpredictable changes prevent the movement from becoming mechanical. The turbulent premiere on 29 May 1913, with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky, belongs to the history of both dance and music. Beyond the notoriety of that evening, the work remains fundamental to our understanding of how rhythm can organise a large composition.
  • Pulcinella (1919–1920). Stravinsky reworks eighteenth-century music associated in the original production with Pergolesi, although some of it came from other composers. Recognisable melodies and older formal outlines remain, while their harmonies, accents and instrumental relationships are transformed. With its three vocal soloists, the ballet marks a decisive stage in his neoclassical development: the past becomes material for new composition. In the later orchestral suite, the removal of the voices and selection of movements shift attention towards the dances and instrumental exchanges as concert music in their own right.
  • Apollo — Apollon musagète (1927–1928). Written for string orchestra, the ballet inhabits a world of clear lines, measured movement and restrained lyricism. Apollo and the Muses acquire musical identities through dances and variations that bring articulation and subtle differences of sonority into focus. Balanchine’s Paris production of 1928 began one of modern ballet’s most significant creative partnerships. It followed the work’s first presentation in Washington, DC, with choreography by Adolph Bolm—a distinction that matters when tracing the history of this enduring score and its stage life.
  • The Fairy’s Kiss — Le Baiser de la fée (1928). An Andersen fairy tale meets music by Tchaikovsky, drawn chiefly from songs and piano pieces. Stravinsky reshapes this material into a personal tribute, placing familiar Romantic melodies within a different rhythmic and orchestral setting. The ballet illuminates a particular aspect of his relationship with Russian tradition: the return to a beloved composer through memory and transformation. Its music later supplied the concert Divertimento, giving these reimagined melodies another life beyond the original theatrical setting.
  • Jeu de cartes — A Card Game (1936; premiered 1937). A game of poker becomes a ballet in three successive “deals”, dominated by a Joker who keeps changing allegiances. The score draws on orchestral agility, unexpected shifts and playful references to earlier music. The rules of the game and the Joker’s interventions find musical counterparts: recognisable returns alternate with sudden changes of direction. The first production in New York again brought Stravinsky together with Balanchine, whose choreography gave physical form to the score’s contest between established patterns and disruptive possibilities.
  • Orpheus (1946–1947). The ancient myth takes on a spare, ritual character, with the harp evoking Orpheus’s lyre. Restrained orchestration leaves melodic lines almost exposed; lament gains intensity through economy, recurring phrases and delicate changes of sound. Collaboration with Balanchine and the designer Isamu Noguchi produced a shared conception of music, dance and stage space. First performed in New York in 1948, the work gives grief a measured, sustained presence, allowing the smallest inflection to carry expressive force.
  • Agon (1953–1957). In this ballet for twelve dancers, Stravinsky brings historical European dance types into contact with a distinctly modern organisation of sound. Tonal passages, chromatic writing and serial procedures coexist in a succession of short, clearly defined sections. The music passes between small instrumental groups, continually changing weight and colour and offering the choreography a supple network of relationships. With no narrative plot, attention turns to movement, number and musical form: how combinations gather, separate and establish new patterns before our eyes and ears.

Music Theatre and Opera: Different Ways of Telling a Story

Stravinsky approached the theatre through widely differing traditions: Andersen’s fairy tales, Russian folk narrative, comic opera and ancient tragedy. Each subject prompted a different division of responsibilities between the person who speaks, the person who sings and the person who moves on stage. The results have sharply individual dramatic identities, from the small travelling theatre envisaged for The Soldier’s Tale to the monumental stillness of Oedipus Rex.

  • The Nightingale — Le Rossignol (1908–1914). This three-act opera draws on Andersen’s tale of the living and mechanical nightingales. The long interruption in its composition left traces of different stages in Stravinsky’s development. Act I retains a closer affinity with Rimsky-Korsakov, while the later acts draw on the orchestral and harmonic experience of the great ballets. In 1917, material chiefly from Acts II and III was transformed into the independent orchestral work Le Chant du rossignol—The Song of the Nightingale—allowing the opera’s contrasting sounds to be reconsidered in another medium.
  • Renard — The Fox (1915–1916). Four male voices tell a Russian folk tale while separate stage performers enact the action. The small instrumental ensemble, prominently featuring the cimbalom—a string instrument played with small beaters—creates a rough-edged, agile sound world. Song, dance and comic action renew music theatre through economical means. The singers belong with the instrumental ensemble, while dancers carry the physical action. This separation of voice and role allows narration and staged representation to proceed alongside one another, each retaining its own theatrical possibilities.
  • The Soldier’s Tale — Histoire du soldat (1918). With a text by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, the work combines spoken narration, acting, dance and seven musicians. The soldier’s surrender of his violin to the Devil unfolds through marches, a chorale, tango, waltz and ragtime. These dance types remain recognisable, while asymmetrical phrases and displaced accents give them a new nervous energy. Violin and double bass, clarinet and bassoon, cornet, trombone and percussion provide an exceptionally wide range of colours with very few performers. Each voice preserves its roughness or agility even when the texture grows dense.
  • Mavra (1921–1922). This one-act comic opera, with a libretto by Boris Kochno after Pushkin, is dedicated to the memory of Pushkin, Glinka and Tchaikovsky. A young man disguises himself as a cook to gain access to his beloved, and this domestic comedy unfolds through arias, a duet and ensembles recalling Russian and Italian operatic traditions. Directness of song coexists with delicate irony and an unusual orchestral balance, strongly weighted towards the winds. The work demonstrates how important nineteenth-century music also became to Stravinsky’s neoclassical thinking.
  • Les Noces — The Wedding (1914–1923). After successive experiments, these four choreographic scenes on Russian folk wedding texts reached their final form for four vocal soloists, mixed chorus, four pianos and percussion. Individual voices enter a collective ceremony in which characters, blessings and farewells succeed one another with unremitting rhythmic force. The four pianos merge with the percussion to create an insistent foundation for the singing. The wedding emerges as a communal event embracing joy, anxiety and separation. The 1923 premiere, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, brought social ritual into a radically modern theatrical language.
  • Oedipus Rex (1926–1927). This “opera-oratorio” is based on Sophocles, with a text by Jean Cocteau translated into Latin by Jean Daniélou. The narrator addresses the audience in a modern language, while the singers and male chorus present the drama with monumental stillness. The spoken narrative announces events that we then hear taking place. Arias and choral movements consequently bear the weight of a fate already known, yet the music sustains the tension of gradual revelation. The contrast between foreknowledge and unfolding experience is central to the work’s dramatic power.
  • Perséphone (1933–1934). This melodrama on a text by André Gide combines a female speaker, solo tenor, choruses and orchestra. Persephone’s descent into the underworld becomes the starting point for a meditation on compassion, loss and the return of life. Speech, song and stage movement retain distinct functions, placing the work between theatre, oratorio and ballet. Their alternation allows us to hear the heroine’s personal decision within a larger cycle of descent, deprivation and renewal, as individual choice becomes part of a wider ritual pattern.
  • The Rake’s Progress (1948–1951). The three-act opera, with a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, grew from William Hogarth’s series of engravings. Tom Rakewell abandons the prospect of a quiet life and follows the enigmatic Nick Shadow towards desire and destruction. Arias, recitatives and ensembles converse with earlier opera, particularly Mozart. Stravinsky’s harmony, rhythm and irony give that inheritance a renewed dramatic charge. First performed in Venice in 1951, the work represents a culmination of his neoclassical achievement, bringing inherited theatrical forms into a searching modern fable.

Orchestral and Symphonic Music

Away from the stage, Stravinsky repeatedly reconsidered what symphonic music could be. At times he engages with the classical four-movement model; elsewhere he arranges successive wind sonorities or a brief sequence of variations. Instrumental choices determine how a composition moves forward. A melody passed from one voice to another creates a different kind of continuity from abrupt changes between entire instrumental groups.

  • Fireworks — Feu d’artifice, Op. 4 (1908). This short orchestral fantasy displays the speed, brilliance and technical assurance of Stravinsky’s early orchestration. Small motifs dart through instrumental groups, creating an impression of continuous ignition across the orchestra. It was among the youthful compositions that attracted Diaghilev’s attention and helped open the way to major theatrical commissions. For all its brevity, the piece anticipates the incisive colour of the first ballets, revealing how swiftly a passing musical idea can acquire a vivid orchestral identity.
  • Funeral Song — Chant funèbre, Op. 5 (1908). Written in memory of Rimsky-Korsakov, the work follows a slow, processional course as its melody passes among different instrumental voices. After its first performance in 1909, it was believed lost until the orchestral parts were discovered at the St Petersburg Conservatory in 2015. Its return to the repertoire made the transition from Stravinsky’s early symphonic world towards The Firebird newly audible. It also restored a moving example of the young composer’s ability to sustain expression through the changing colour of a recurring line.
  • Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920; revised 1947). Dedicated to Debussy’s memory, the work uses “symphonies” in the sense of instruments sounding together in different combinations. Brief episodes, melodic invocations and chorale-like passages follow one another with a strong sense of proportion and ritual order. Without strings, every change of grouping is especially clear. The 1947 revision offers a different formulation of the same musical thought. Comparison with the original score reveals how deeply the details of instrumental sound continued to concern Stravinsky, even decades after a work’s first conception.
  • Symphony in C (1938–1940). The four-movement symphony revisits the classical model through Stravinsky’s own rhythmic and harmonic language. Distinctive themes and references to sonata form coexist with changing accents, unexpected phrase lengths and subtle instrumental contrasts. Recognition of a familiar symphonic movement is often accompanied by a small surprise in a phrase’s duration or stress. This interaction between familiarity and alteration gives the classical design a personal character, inviting listeners to hear the inherited form through the precise adjustments made to its internal movement.
  • Symphony in Three Movements (1942–1945). The restless outer movements frame a calmer central Andante. Piano and harp assume distinctive functions within the orchestra, while persistent patterns and sharply cut contrasts generate considerable pressure. Stravinsky himself connected the work with images and experiences of the war years, although it has no continuous narrative programme. Its tightly constructed writing reveals the persistence of his rhythmic concerns within symphonic form: concentrated activity, abrupt changes of direction and instrumental exchanges contribute to the music’s forward drive.
  • Concerto in D for String Orchestra (1946). Paul Sacher’s commission for the Basel Chamber Orchestra resulted in a concise work of lively movement and intense internal activity. Accents, narrow melodic intervals and changes of articulation bring tension to the homogeneous surface of the strings. Its three-movement design balances rhythmic energy with lyrical concentration. Although it shares the designation “Concerto in D” with the 1931 violin concerto, here the concertante activity takes place among the string groups themselves, allowing contrasting lines and collective sonorities to emerge from the same instrumental family.
  • Variations: Aldous Huxley in Memoriam (1963–1964). In only a few minutes, this late work concentrates an intricate orchestral conception. Small groups of instruments, brief phrases and carefully distributed silences produce a succession of transformations. Serial organisation meets Stravinsky’s enduring sensitivity to differences of timbre and articulation. The dedication to the writer Aldous Huxley accompanies music that asks for close attention: each passing instrumental appearance affects what we retain of the phrase before it, making memory an active part of the listening experience.

Concertos and Concertante Works

Virtuosity takes on different meanings in Stravinsky’s concertante music. The piano can project its crisp attack against the winds, the violin alternate lyrical and dance-like phrases, while in Dumbarton Oaks the initiative moves around the small ensemble. The concerto tradition offered him many ways of relating an individual voice to collective musical action.

  • Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1923–1924). Winds reinforced by timpani and double basses create an unusual setting for the piano. The solo instrument’s clear articulation and the contrapuntal writing connect with Bach’s tradition, while rhythmic displacements preserve Stravinsky’s distinctive identity. The composer himself was the work’s first soloist. Double basses are the only members of the string family, leaving the piano sharply outlined against the winds. Its phrases encounter both the compact weight of the brass and the more mobile writing of the woodwinds, producing a succession of clearly differentiated exchanges.
  • Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra (1928–1929). Virtuosity enters a bright, agile sequence of three connected movements. Rapid motion, ornamental figures and incisive rhythmic articulation keep the piano in continual communication with the orchestra. Written in connection with Stravinsky’s activities as a pianist, the work reveals a particularly outgoing side of his concertante music. Returns of material provide recognisable landmarks within the fast-moving surface, giving the display a clear musical direction and allowing exuberance to coexist with a carefully proportioned overall design.
  • Violin Concerto in D (1931). Collaboration with Samuel Dushkin helped shape a solo part of marked individuality. The four movements—Toccata, Aria I, Aria II and Capriccio—recall older instrumental and vocal types, each with a different character. The opening chord, returning at the beginning of every movement, provides a point of recognition before the music takes another course. Virtuosity depends on precise articulation, changes of character and dialogue with individual orchestral instruments. The violin’s identity develops through these encounters as much as through its more exposed solo writing.
  • Concerto in E-flat “Dumbarton Oaks” (1937–1938). Commissioned by Robert and Mildred Bliss for fifteen instruments, the work unfolds in three connected movements. Its affinity with Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos can be heard in the mobility of independent lines and the changing instrumental combinations. Accents and uneven phrases nevertheless create a different sense of movement. The small ensemble allows each instrument to assume a temporary solo presence within the collective texture, making the transfer of initiative between players one of the principal pleasures of listening.
  • Ebony Concerto (1945). Written for Woody Herman and his band, the concerto places a solo clarinet within an ensemble of saxophones, brass and rhythm instruments. Stravinsky approaches the colours and expressive possibilities of jazz through a fully notated score. The slow movement recalls the blues, while the short overall form remains highly concentrated. The familiar sound of the jazz band acquires a different discipline and sense of proportion. This encounter also reveals his interest in particular musicians and in what the instruments they played could bring to his compositional thinking.
  • Movements for Piano and Orchestra (1958–1959). Five brief movements, linked by four orchestral interludes, form one of Stravinsky’s most concentrated concertante works. Piano and orchestral voices frequently appear as single notes or small groups of sounds, giving silences structural weight. Webern’s influence is apparent in the transparency and economy of the writing. Listening centres on distances between short phrases, changes of colour and momentary encounters between piano and orchestra. Within this sparse surface, the precision of Stravinsky’s articulation remains recognisable, even as the musical language enters unfamiliar territory.

Chamber Music and Small Instrumental Ensembles

In small ensembles, every entrance and change of articulation is more exposed. Stravinsky uses this condition to investigate how a few independent lines can coexist, persist in different patterns or briefly converge. These works illuminate both the radical experiments of the years following Petrushka and his later preoccupation with counterpoint and historical forms.

  • Three Pieces for String Quartet (1914). These brief compositions explore different ways of organising four instruments: repetitive patterns, discontinuous episodes and more restrained, chorale-like writing. The quartet’s homogeneous sound becomes the starting point for pronounced internal differences. The pieces were later orchestrated and became the first three of the Four Studies for Orchestra. Comparing the two versions shows how an idea initially sustained by differences of articulation among four string instruments can develop through the colours of a much larger ensemble, gaining another scale without losing its essential profile.
  • Octet for Wind Instruments (1922–1923). Flute, clarinet, two bassoons, two trumpets and two trombones form an ensemble with sharply distinguished colours. A Sinfonia, a theme with variations and a Finale establish a firmly articulated design. Contrapuntal motion and clear formal functions place the work at the heart of Stravinsky’s neoclassical output. As the music moves between mixed groups and more homogeneous sonorities, the same instruments change roles: they emerge alone, support another phrase or come together in a shared rhythmic pattern. Their changing relationships animate the architecture from within.
  • Duo concertant for Violin and Piano (1931–1932). Written for Stravinsky’s partnership with Dushkin, the work has five movements whose titles evoke poetry and antiquity: Cantilène, two Églogues, Gigue and Dithyrambe. The instruments participate as equals, exchanging melodic and rhythmic responsibilities. These titles help distinguish song-like, pastoral and dancing elements without prescribing a particular story. The sequence ends in a more inward lyricism, giving special importance to the rapport between the two performers. Its expressive character grows from their shared phrasing and from the changing distribution of musical weight.
  • Septet (1952–1953). Clarinet, bassoon, horn, piano and string trio create a distinctive balance of instrumental colours. The historical associations of the Passacaglia and Gigue coexist with new ways of systematically organising pitches. The work occupies an important transitional position, where neoclassical thinking begins to meet serial procedures. This turn towards serial writing takes shape through familiar compositional tasks: a line returns, changes position or combines with different voices. Older forms thus provide space for the exploration of a new organisational method, making the transition audible as a continuing investigation.

Piano Music: Virtuosity, Articulation and Form

The piano accompanied Stravinsky’s daily compositional work and also supported his public career as a performer. In his scores, the attack of the keys can evoke orchestral intensity or bring a few independent voices into sharp focus. The formidable demands of Petrushka and the leaner writing of the Sonata require different kinds of control over the same instrument: power, lucid articulation and carefully graded sound.

  • Three Movements from Petrushka (1921). Written for Arthur Rubinstein, these movements recast selected scenes from the ballet as a demanding piano work. Wide leaps, dense chords and simultaneous rhythmic layers ask the pianist to recreate different instrumental presences at the keyboard. The brilliance serves the return of the fairground, the theatre and the characters’ peculiar life. Orchestral contrasts are reimagined as differences of touch, dynamic weight and the movement of the hands. The three scenes consequently acquire an independent concert existence, drawing their energy from a distinctly pianistic recreation of the ballet.
  • Piano Sonata (1924). The three-movement Sonata directs attention towards linear motion, counterpoint and clearly articulated phrases. References to earlier keyboard music coexist with Stravinsky’s own harmonic and rhythmic choices. Between the lively outer movements, the Adagietto allows phrases to breathe differently, concentrating more closely on melodic contour and ornamentation. The relatively lean writing requires fine control of sound so that each line retains its place within the texture. Expressive detail emerges through the relationship between voices and through the care given to their articulation.
  • Serenade in A (1925). The four brief movements—Hymne, Romanza, Rondoletto and Cadenza finala—present a sequence of contrasting characters. A serves as a point of reference without confining the work to a conventional tonal journey. Melodic poise accompanies subtle shifts of accompaniment and rhythmic articulation. Each movement leaves a short, distinct impression, while the shared reference to A helps the passage from one character to another register as part of a continuous whole. The work invites attention to small changes of balance within an exceptionally economical design.
  • Concerto for Two Solo Pianos (completed 1935). With no orchestra, the two pianos assume every function of concertante interaction. The four movements include a slow movement, variations and a concluding Preludio e fuga, bringing different forms into a single architectural span. Orchestral fullness is transferred to the collaboration between the performers: sometimes they distribute independent lines, sometimes they meet in compact, rhythmically incisive sonorities. Stravinsky first performed the work with his son Soulima in Paris in 1935, giving its intricate exchanges the practical foundation of a shared performing partnership.

The Voice on a Small Scale

In the short songs, attention falls on the pronunciation of a word, the placement of an accent or an instrument’s entrance beside the voice. Japanese poetry encountered in Russian translation and the playfulness of Russian folk language lead to different kinds of vocal writing. In both, Stravinsky finds room for concentrated musical invention within a small frame.

  • Three Japanese Lyrics (1912–1913). The brief poems come from an anthology in Russian translation and are set for high voice and small instrumental ensemble. Delicate declamation meets incisive instrumental lines and active inner textures. Composed during the period of The Rite of Spring, the songs offer a different scale for related interests in rhythm and layered sound. Spring, their common poetic horizon, acquires a fragile presence through fleeting images. Every vocal entrance and change of instrumental colour therefore gains additional weight, as a few sounds open a momentary perspective on the words.
  • Pribaoutki (1914). These four short songs on Russian folk texts draw on verbal play, repetition and unexpected associations of images. The voice moves within a small ensemble of instruments with strongly differentiated colours. Pronunciation and the distribution of accents become starting points for musical construction. Their concise storytelling and sudden turns of phrase connect the songs with the folk narrative that also occupied Stravinsky in the larger theatrical works of these years. The small scale brings the meeting of speech rhythm and instrumental response into particularly close focus.

Sacred and Choral Music

Sacred music remained a point of reference across successive phases of Stravinsky’s career and assumed greater prominence in his later years. Latin, repeated invocations and the chorus’s shared delivery of words shaped a personal sense of ritual. Between the Symphony of Psalms and Requiem Canticles, the language changes profoundly, while the search for concentrated, communal prayer persists.

  • Symphony of Psalms (1930). Written for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s fiftieth anniversary, the work organises three Latin psalm texts into three connected movements. The chorus joins an unusual orchestra without violins, violas or clarinets, but with two pianos and a prominent wind section. The double fugue in the second movement demonstrates the disciplined coexistence of independent lines, while the peaceful conclusion of the final Alleluias changes our sense of time. The overall journey leads from invocation towards a shared, restrained act of praise, with voices and instruments contributing to the same symphonic process.
  • Mass (1944–1948). This setting of the Catholic liturgical text is scored for mixed chorus and ten wind instruments. Vocal delivery often retains a plain, communal character, while the instruments provide support, responses and short independent episodes. Woodwind and brass form a small ensemble of distinct voices that frames the chorus without obscuring the syllabic delivery of the words. The work occupies a particular place between Stravinsky’s neoclassical sacred music and the later compositions employing serial techniques, preserving an intimate relationship between instrumental clarity and the shared enunciation of the text.
  • Canticum Sacrum ad honorem Sancti Marci nominis (1955). Dedicated to St Mark and closely associated with Venice, the work is written for tenor, bass, chorus and orchestra with organ. Its symmetrical five-part design brings older contrapuntal references together with Stravinsky’s developing approach to twelve-note writing. Winds, organ and lower strings lend the ceremony a particular gravity. Within this order of sound and form, the new technique enters his continuing dialogue with sacred music, joining the exploration of pitch organisation to an enduring concern with ritual proportion and collective utterance.
  • Threni: id est Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae (1957–1958). Six vocal soloists, mixed chorus and orchestra set selected passages from the Lamentations of Jeremiah in the Latin Vulgate. Twelve-note organisation sustains dense counterpoint, varied vocal combinations and close attention to the text. One of the longest and most demanding works of Stravinsky’s final period, it offers listeners orientation through alternating solo and choral groups, recurring verbal formulations and changes of textural density. Concentration on the words coexists with an exceptionally exacting musical construction, asking performers and listeners alike to follow the relationships between individual voices.
  • Requiem Canticles (1966). Extracts from the Mass for the Dead are set for contralto, bass, chorus and orchestra, interspersed with instrumental movements. The short duration encompasses pronounced differences of density, colour and textual delivery. Vocal invocations alternate with orchestral outbursts and pauses, establishing a clearly perceptible ritual sequence. Serial technique holds this variety within a tightly concentrated form. Performed at Stravinsky’s funeral in Venice in 1971, the work remains one of the most focused statements of his late musical thought, bringing voices, instrumental colour and silence into an unusually powerful relationship.

From The Firebird to Requiem Canticles, Stravinsky repeatedly returns to music’s ability to transform what it inherits: a folk melody, an old dance, a Bachian form, a way of ordering pitches. Proportions, colours and the passage of time change with every work. His contribution to twentieth-century music and dance is bound to this inexhaustible work on form. Listening across his remarkably different compositions, we recognise a continuity in the care with which each sound is placed: at the moment a repetition shifts, an instrumental voice comes forward or a silence changes the weight of what we have just heard.