Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

A small ensemble devoted to Baroque and Classical repertoire, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields rose to become one of classical music’s most widely heard orchestras, releasing recordings that dominated specialist charts and occasionally crossed into mainstream audiences. Many listeners came to associate the group’s polished, unified sonority with Baroque style itself.

Formed in 1958 by violinist Neville Marriner to investigate the still-emerging domain of Baroque performance, the ensemble adopted its name from the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, where it gave its debut concert on November 13, 1959. Until commercial pressures required Marriner to assume the podium, the musicians performed without a conductor. Their first sessions took place in 1961 for L’Oiseau-Lyre, whose founder Louise Hanson-Dyer strongly supported the project; early success arrived more readily through discs than live engagements. The orchestra transferred to the period-instrument-focused Argo label in 1965. Broadcasts from the BBC Proms expanded its reach, and in 1970 it reorganized as a fully professional body under Marriner and the founding members. Film scores for BBC television productions further stabilized its finances. Although Marriner eventually conducted, he continued to direct many performances from the first-violin desk; successors Iona Brown and Kenneth Sillito maintained the same practice in Baroque repertoire. After Sillito stepped down in 2012, Joshua Bell was appointed music director. Since 2000 the principal guest conductor has been pianist Murray Perahia, who had already led conductorless accounts of Mozart and other Classical piano concertos.

Over the decades the repertory broadened to encompass the Wagner Siegfried Idyll and selected contemporary scores. The original orchestra eventually spawned two smaller units—the Chamber Ensemble, launched in 1967 for string chamber music—and a flexible larger formation that could expand to forty-five players. A Chorus of St. Martin in the Fields, assembled in 1975 for a tour performance of Bach’s Mass in B minor, BWV 232, later became an autonomous organization. The Academy retained its link with the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields while adding a brief annual season at the Royal Festival Hall.

Recordings, however, stayed central to its identity; more than five hundred albums have appeared to date, with the calendar frequently encompassing a dozen or more releases in a single year. The orchestra joined the Philips roster in 1971 and has subsequently worked with Decca, London, ASV, and additional imprints. A landmark came with the 1984 soundtrack for the film Amadeus, which headed classical charts, registered on pop listings, and remains among the genre’s all-time best-sellers. In 2019 the Academy, with pianist Jan Lisiecki directing from the keyboard, issued a complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos on Deutsche Grammophon.