Biography
Violinist Anthony Marwood rose to prominence as a soloist during the 2000s and 2010s, following an extended phase of diversified training that encompassed chamber work, advocacy for new music in recital settings, membership in a distinguished early-music collective, and ventures into boundary-blurring experiments.
Erroneous accounts have listed his birth year and location as 1979 in Helsinki, Finland—an impossibility given that it would have placed him at only sixteen upon entering the Florestan Trio in 1995. His correct birthdate is July 6, 1965. Born in London, he attended King Edward VI Grammar School in Chelmsford, England, and began violin studies at age seven once his three older siblings had each taken up an instrument. At the Royal Academy of Music his principal instructor was Emanuel Hurwitz; after Marwood performed Paganini’s La Campanella with evident satisfaction, Hurwitz remarked, “Did you know it was half speed?” Subsequent training took place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and in lessons with Sandor Végh.
Upon becoming the Florestan Trio’s violinist, Marwood stayed with the ensemble for sixteen years. While the trio concentrated on core chamber literature, Marwood simultaneously developed parallel skills. He toured and recorded with his brother and two sisters in the Marwood Ensemble, which specialized in less conventional works for strings and winds. He also spent several seasons with Britain’s Raphael Ensemble, a sextet whose 1990 Hyperion album of Schoenberg and Erich Wolfgang Korngold sextets marked Marwood’s first appearance on disc; additional recordings with the group followed throughout the 1990s. He later became Principal Artistic Partner of the period-instrument orchestra Les Violons du Roy. Further afield, he collaborated with Indian dancer Mayuri Boonham and, in a singular project, conceived a touring version of Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat in which he delivered the narration, mimed the action, and changed among military uniform, business suit, and complete nudity. His initial solo album for Hyperion, issued in 1998, presented Dvořák violin-and-piano pieces; he thereafter remained a regular presence on the label, frequently documenting twentieth- and twenty-first-century repertory. In 2002 he recorded Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons for Classic FM, an edition whose cover misspelled his name.
Alongside these activities, Marwood earned critical acclaim for solo engagements. He performed Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63, at the Proms and, in 2007, recorded Thomas Adès’s newly composed concerto for EMI with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Two Wigmore Hall recitals with pianist Aleksandar Madzar—devoted respectively to Brahms and Schumann violin sonatas—appeared on the hall’s Wigmore Hall Live imprint in 2012 and 2013. He committed the Britten violin concerto to disc in 2012 and the Walton concerto in 2017, both with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. In 2022 he joined Canary Classics for Beautiful Passing, an album of Steven Mackey’s violin-and-orchestra music recorded with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. At that point his catalog encompassed roughly forty releases.
Erroneous accounts have listed his birth year and location as 1979 in Helsinki, Finland—an impossibility given that it would have placed him at only sixteen upon entering the Florestan Trio in 1995. His correct birthdate is July 6, 1965. Born in London, he attended King Edward VI Grammar School in Chelmsford, England, and began violin studies at age seven once his three older siblings had each taken up an instrument. At the Royal Academy of Music his principal instructor was Emanuel Hurwitz; after Marwood performed Paganini’s La Campanella with evident satisfaction, Hurwitz remarked, “Did you know it was half speed?” Subsequent training took place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and in lessons with Sandor Végh.
Upon becoming the Florestan Trio’s violinist, Marwood stayed with the ensemble for sixteen years. While the trio concentrated on core chamber literature, Marwood simultaneously developed parallel skills. He toured and recorded with his brother and two sisters in the Marwood Ensemble, which specialized in less conventional works for strings and winds. He also spent several seasons with Britain’s Raphael Ensemble, a sextet whose 1990 Hyperion album of Schoenberg and Erich Wolfgang Korngold sextets marked Marwood’s first appearance on disc; additional recordings with the group followed throughout the 1990s. He later became Principal Artistic Partner of the period-instrument orchestra Les Violons du Roy. Further afield, he collaborated with Indian dancer Mayuri Boonham and, in a singular project, conceived a touring version of Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat in which he delivered the narration, mimed the action, and changed among military uniform, business suit, and complete nudity. His initial solo album for Hyperion, issued in 1998, presented Dvořák violin-and-piano pieces; he thereafter remained a regular presence on the label, frequently documenting twentieth- and twenty-first-century repertory. In 2002 he recorded Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons for Classic FM, an edition whose cover misspelled his name.
Alongside these activities, Marwood earned critical acclaim for solo engagements. He performed Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63, at the Proms and, in 2007, recorded Thomas Adès’s newly composed concerto for EMI with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Two Wigmore Hall recitals with pianist Aleksandar Madzar—devoted respectively to Brahms and Schumann violin sonatas—appeared on the hall’s Wigmore Hall Live imprint in 2012 and 2013. He committed the Britten violin concerto to disc in 2012 and the Walton concerto in 2017, both with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. In 2022 he joined Canary Classics for Beautiful Passing, an album of Steven Mackey’s violin-and-orchestra music recorded with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. At that point his catalog encompassed roughly forty releases.
Albums
