Maestro, 76, finds a plucky pal in harpist half his age

HE IS renowned as one of the most innovative and dynamic figures in classical music, but Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s immense vitality and passion are not confined to his performances from the conductor’s podium.

Indeed, I can disclose that, at the age of 76, the thrice-married Gardiner has separated from his 59-year-old wife of 18 years, blonde Italian soprano Isabella de Sabata, after striking up a rapport with prize-winning Dutch harpist Gwyneth Wentink.

Barely half Gardiner’s age at 37, Ms Wentink is solo harpist of the English Baroque Soloists — the chamber orchestra founded by Gardiner, who remains its artistic director.

The development has become the subject of excitable exchanges on a WhatsApp group involving mutual friends, as well as in the Dorset village of Fontmell Magna, close to Gardiner’s 500-acre organic farm.

A forceful, uninhibited figure knighted in 1998, Gardiner declines to comment on this latest aria in his sometimes tempestuous personal life.

Gwyneth, too, chooses to remain silent. But friends of Isabella — whose late grandfather, Victor de Sabata, was a conductor of arguably even greater acclaim than her estranged husband — are distraught.

‘She’s vivacious, fun and friendly,’ says one. ‘She and John have a shared passion for Bach, but it’s obvious that they’ve been having problems.’

Gardiner’s first marriage, to Cherryl ffoulkes, lasted eight years. His second, to violinist Elizabeth Wilcock, whom he married in 1981, a year after his divorce from Cherryl, endured for twice as long and produced three daughters. But it seemed that, in Isabella, he had met his match.

Only two years ago, he extolled her ‘impeccable musical pedigree’, adding she is ‘very bright and astute’ and ‘can be fiery’.

Gardiner, who has observed that the relationship between guest conductor and orchestra can be unpredictable — ‘a bit like a onenight stand’ — emphasised that he saw Isabella’s fieriness as a quality, explaining: ‘It wouldn’t work if she didn’t stand up to me.’

It appears that, henceforth, Gardiner will be waving his baton in another direction.