From the Russian fairy-tale enchantment of The Firebird to the austere ritual at the end of his Requiem Canticles composed over half a century later, Stravinsky's extraordinary creativity embraces a range of styles and tributes to composers of the past. He started under the guidance of Rimsky-Korsakov in pre-revolutionary St Petersburg and ended his life in America having made a very special kind of peace with the rigorous (serial) techniques of Schoenberg and Webern. Yet his homage's are always heartfelt, and he always remains himself: truly the most comprehensive and wide-ranging musical genius of the twentieth century.
