Aside from a few notable exceptions like Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich, few composers infuse their music with as much personal spirituality and religiosity as does John Tavener. He has described his conversion to the Russian Orthodox Church as a kind of homecoming, and many of his works suggest a return to a heavenly home hereafter. While the majority of his musical works deal with mystical and religious subjects and ideas, and a number of them employ pseudo-liturgical structures or gestures, the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis Collegium Regale are actually intended for use in a church service.

Interestingly, they do not form part of an Orthodox service but an Anglican one; the pair was composed in response to a commission from the choir at King's College in Cambridge. Nonetheless, the Orthodox influence (this time Greek rather than Russian, as the composer was in Aegina at the time) plays a prominent role in defining the character of the pieces, which must be considered some of the most unique among the body of Anglican church music.

Those close to the composer have commented on Tavener's mixed blessing and curse of picking up and putting in his pocket every scrap of music he heard-in church, on the radio, on the street. As one friend recalled, "That's why he used to drink so much... because that was the only way he could sleep. He would hear music constantly... Maybe we'd be in a taxi, and there'd be some snatch of a Greek pop song that would stick like a burr in his head. For three we'd be singing variations on it. He would sing it with the taxi drivers and the waiters... " In fact, just such an incident proved to be the inspiration for Magnificat and Nunc dimittis. As the composer recalled, "We were in a taxi... the taxi driver was tuned to a radio station which plays the music of northern Greece. I heard this young girl singing a traditional song, over a drone... I jotted it down on a paper handkerchief." As he looked for someplace to put his found tune, "I thought I'd see if I could make something of the young Greek girl's song that the boys at King's would be able to sing." (As quoted in Geoffrey Haydon, John Tavener: Glimpses of Paradise, p. 199).

Tavener altered the standard Anglican outline of the Magnificat, introducing some structural features borrowed from Greek Orthodoxy. Mary's song is derived from the folk song Tavener had notated in the taxi, and consists of a melody over a drone. Additionally, between verses Tavener inserts a refrain, or troparian, an element common to Greek liturgical practice but foreign to the Anglican service. (Nonetheless, the presiding authorities apparently looked upon the ecumenical mix favorably.) These refrains are set to triumphant, triadic music, which contrasts with the sparer texture of the initial verses. With each subsequent verse, the singing forces of the melody are gradually expanded, creating an overarching textural crescendo of the kind that would later be utilized to shape the dramatic contour in each verse of Love Bade Me Welcome. The same richness of vocal combinations and contrasts characterizes the shorter and somewhat simpler Nunc dimittis.

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