Icon: Neville Marriner
There are musicians who very obviously change the way we hear music, and those who are so subtly convincing that we barely notice any change has taken place at all. For me, Sir Neville Marriner (1924-2016) belonged emphatically to the latter category. By the end of the 20th century his recordings seemed so natural and so unfailingly stylish that it became easy to overlook how revolutionary they had once sounded, and how many new generations of listeners had encountered Bach, Mozart and Vivaldi through him and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF), causing them to equate Baroque and early Classical music with the clarity, elegance and rhythmic vitality that he pioneered.
Marriner's career is often summarised by way of astonishing facts: he made more than six hundred who was already displaying the curiosity and intellectual energy that would make him one of Britain's most influential pioneers of early music scholarship. Dart possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of historical performance, and he questioned how older music might actually sound based on his interest in European folk music.
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There is a temptation in writing about the early music revival to view all musicians as stepping stones towards supposedly greater historical authenticity. Marriner, however, is no mere transitional figure between the lush orchestral Bach of the first half of the 20th century and the specialist period ensembles that came later, since his achievement was not to produce the answers to 18th-century interpretation, but rather to persuade audiences that the quest itself was enjoyable. Perhaps that explains why so many listeners who first discovered classical music through the ASMF retain lifelong gratitude towards its founder. Others may have played faster, argued more fiercely about historical evidence or pursued period instruments with greater ideological zeal, but Marriner convinced people to listen and for so many of us was the catalyst for a lifetime of musical exploration. There can be few finer monuments than that.
There is a temptation in writing about the early music revival to view all musicians as stepping stones towards supposedly greater historical authenticity. Marriner, however, is no mere transitional figure between the lush orchestral Bach of the first half of the 20th century and the specialist period ensembles that came later, since his achievement was not to produce the answers to 18th-century interpretation, but rather to persuade audiences that the quest itself was enjoyable. Perhaps that explains why so many listeners who first discovered classical music through the ASMF retain lifelong gratitude towards its founder. Others may have played faster, argued more fiercely about historical evidence or pursued period instruments with greater ideological zeal, but Marriner convinced people to listen and for so many of us was the catalyst for a lifetime of musical exploration. There can be few finer monuments than that.
To read the full text of this feature please visit Gramophone.co.uk (September 2026)
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