The most prolific conductor of his time
Sir Neville Marriner 1924-2016
Sir Neville Marriner, who has died aged 92, was a rare example of a great conductor known for his likeability, said The Daily Telegraph. In an era when many of his peers had reputations as tyrants of the podium, musicians knew that Marriner was one of them: a talented violinist who had co-founded the Academy of St Martin in the Fields chamber orchestra precisely in order to escape the control of bullies and egotists. To begin with, the Academy had no conductor. It was only later, and with some reluctance, that Marriner was persuaded to “turn gamekeeper”, as he put it, and exchange his violin for a baton. Under his leadership, the Academy enjoyed phenomenal success. Indeed, there is no pairing of orchestra and conductor in history that has been more frequently recorded.
Marriner was born in Lincoln in 1924. His father, a carpenter, taught him to play the violin and the piano at an early age. In due course, Marriner chose to focus on the violin, which he went on to study at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. After wartime service in the Royal Navy, he began working as a freelance musician, performing with the Philharmonia Orchestra under the baton of such luminaries as Arturo Toscanini and Wilhelm Furtwängler. By 1956, he had secured a place as second violinist for the London Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for the next 12 years. If his career had ended there, Marriner would merely have been remembered as a gifted violinist, said Tully Potter in The Guardian. But in his mid 30s, he and a few friends started gathering at his home to play baroque music for their own pleasure. One of their number was musical director of the church of St Martin-in-the-fields on Trafalgar Square, and suggested that they should give five concerts there: at the first, in 1958, the newly formed Academy was offered a record contract. The ensemble’s popularity grew, and Marriner was coaxed into making the “brilliant career move” of becoming a conductor. He took the transition to his new role very seriously, attending lessons in the US with Pierre Monteux, the great French conductor who had delivered the first, scandalous performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. For Marriner, jettisoning his violin – he said he was “never of virtuoso calibre” – proved a liberating experience. In his new incarnation, he was soon in high demand on the international circuit: his notable appointments including a long stint as conductor of the newly formed Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Eventually, he was so ubiquitous that it became something of a joke in musical circles. There was a cartoon that appeared in the magazine Stereo Review showing a radio announcing a performance by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields: meanwhile, a bored-looking parrot in the background intoned, “Neville Marriner conducting”.
A self-effacing man, Marriner tended to play down his achievements, insisting that he merely provided the “skeleton” of the sound made by an orchestra, said The Independent. Yet he was regarded as one of the world’s most influential conductors, with an “unrivalled” range. When Miloš Forman’s film Amadeus came out in 1984, the publicity material stated: “Only two people were qualified to conduct the score. One was unavailable.” Below were two pictures: one of Mozart, the other of Marriner. In the wake of the film’s success, the soundtrack album he conducted became a global bestseller. Needless to say, Marriner found himself even more sought after than before. “The awful thing about a conductor becoming geriatric,” he observed at the age of 80, “is that you seem to become more desirable, not less. I just wish all these offers had come in when I was 30.” Later on in life, he retired to a cottage on the Devon-dorset border with his second wife, Molly. But he continued to conduct into his 90s; his last appearance, in Padua, Italy, was only two days before his death. Asked for an epitaph for his gravestone, he replied simply: “Follow the beat.”