Neville Marriner

Only Nikolaus Harnoncourt approached the stature Neville Marriner attained among the first conductors to revive widespread attention to Baroque and early Classical repertoire. During the 1950s he established the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the earliest British early-music ensemble to reach a broad international public. Marriner subsequently rose to become one of the most sought-after conductors worldwide, admired for his readings of music from Bach to Britten.

His father began teaching him violin in childhood, and he entered the Royal College of Music at thirteen. An injury sustained in World War II brought him into contact with Thurston Dart, his future collaborator, while both were recovering in hospital. In 1948 he joined the faculty of the Royal Academy of Music. In addition to serving as second violin in the Martin String Quartet, he formed a violin-and-harpsichord duo with Dart; their recitals prompted the creation of the Jacobean Ensemble, which recorded the Purcell trio sonatas in 1950. Around the same period he studied conducting with Pierre Monteux at the conductor’s school in Maine. His profile in wider musical circles also rose, leading to his 1956 appointment as principal second violin of the London Symphony Orchestra.

A decisive development occurred in 1959 when Marriner was invited to furnish music at the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London’s Trafalgar Square. He assembled a chamber orchestra that took the church’s name. The Decca imprint L’Oiseau Lyre noticed the ensemble and recorded its performance of Couperin’s Les Nations. Strong reviews and unexpectedly healthy sales of that release generated further sessions for L’Oiseau Lyre and its sister label Argo, so that by the end of the 1970s the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields had become the best-selling chamber orchestra in recorded-music history. The group grew from thirteen players to twenty or more and began presenting Classical symphonies and twentieth-century British works alongside its Baroque programs. Marriner’s Academy recordings are noted for crisp articulation and bright timbre achieved by applying period-performance principles to modern instruments. His name remains closely identified with the Academy, which now lists more than three hundred recordings, among them the soundtrack to the 1984 film Amadeus, for which he selected, arranged, and directed music by Salieri and Pergolesi in addition to Mozart.

In 1969 Marriner founded the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and later led it on a European tour. He also served as guest conductor with major American orchestras and, in Britain, held the post of conductor of the Northern Sinfonia in Newcastle. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he worked chiefly in the United States as music director and conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra. After receiving a knighthood in 1985 he returned to Europe, directing the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 1989. He continued to conduct internationally, including appearances at the Opéra de Lyon, and maintained an active recording schedule. In 2014, at the age of ninety, he became the oldest conductor to lead a Proms concert to that date.

Vitality, clarity, and precise ensemble discipline marked his conducting, qualities rooted in his earlier career as a violinist. In a 1991 interview he characterized his manner with the words: “I was never a potentate swinging a scepter, but was always in a dialogue with my musicians.”