Stravinksy, Igor

(17 June 1882, Oranienbaum near St. Petersburg – 6 April 1971, N. Y.)

   After studying with Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov from 1903–1908, Stravinsky moved to Paris in 1911 after his first major ballet, Pétrouchka, opened there. From this point on, he made his living by composing and conducting. He lived in Leysin, Switzerland, from 1914 to June 1920 and then returned to the Paris area. On Easter 1926, he renewed his commitment to the Russian Orthodox Church. He sailed to the United States in September 1938 and settled in West Hollywood, Ca. in spring 1941. From 1969 on, he lived in New York.

   Stravinsky’s setting of the Roman Catholic mass ordinary (1948) for a chorus of boy sopranos, altos, tenors, basses, and double wind quintet is his only major sacred work intended for liturgy. He did compose a Pater Noster (1926), Credo (1932), and Ave Maria (1934), originally in Church Slavonic then reworked into Latin in 1949. Other major works include the Symphony of Psalms (1930) for four-voiced choir and orchestra; Canticum Sacrum ad Honorem Sancti {}Marci Nominis (Venice, 1955) for tenor and baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra; Lamentations of Jeremiah (1958) for six soloists, chorus, and orchestra; the cantata A Sermon, a Narrative and a {}Prayer for alto and tenor soloists, speaker, chorus and orchestra; The {}Flood (1962), a dramatic work for one tenor and two baritone soloists, three-voiced (SAT) choir, narrator, and orchestra; Abraham and {}Isaac (1963) for baritone solo singing Hebrew text and chamber orchestra; and the Requiem Canticles for alto and bass soloists, chorus, and orchestra (1966).