A New Maestro for Minnesota

By Christopher Porterfield

Neville Marriner takes a symphonic baton between his teeth

It was 1959, and a promising new chamber orchestra called the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields was gathered in London to make its first recording. The players decided that they needed something they had done without in their initial concerts: a conductor. Their concertmaster, Neville Marriner, hesitantly took the baton. "We went along for a few bars; then everything broke down," Marriner recalls. "We tried a few more bars and everything broke down again. Finally our oboist said, 'Well, Nev, if you're going to conduct, either stand somewhere where we can see you or somewhere where we can't.' "

Marriner has been standing where he can be seen ever since. He has turned out an astonishing total of more than 200 LPs, most of them with the Academy, making him one of the most recorded maestros in history. And far from breaking down every few bars, he has built an international reputation for graceful, lively, intelligently shaped performances, especially of the Baroque composers and Mozart and Haydn. Though he continues to record with the Academy, he has long since ceased to appear regularly with it, having moved on to lead the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for ten years and guest-conduct similar groups all over the world.

But the role of the marathon man of the chamber field can become confining, and too much Baroque music, as Marriner says, "is like being in a sewing machine factory." A few years ago, he began taking more and more engagements with symphonic ensembles. Conducting orchestras such as the Concertgebouw, the Boston Symphony and the French National Orchestra, he decided that what he had learned with chamber orchestras "translated very well into the symphonic world." A good thing too because now, at 55, Marriner is deep into the first season of his most challenging symphonic assignment yet, as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra.

The Minnesotans are one of the nation's very good, though not very best, orchestras. After 19 years under the direction of Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, a capable, rather intellectual conductor with an interest in contemporary music, they are versatile and ambitious, but also uneven; they lack a distinct personality. "I would like to give the orchestra an identifiable style," says Marriner. "My ideal would be an orchestra like the Cleveland under the late George Szell, a precise, responsive instrument in which quality, ensemble, intonation are all there." For starters, he is trying to coax more confident, uniform phrasing from the strings and a "rounder, more civilized" sound from the winds, especially the brass.

Last week, in Minneapolis' acoustically splendid Orchestra Hall, Marriner wound up a two-week stint on the podium that charted his progress so far. A trim (5-ft. 8 1/2-in.), businesslike conductor who believes that "most of the work is done in rehearsals, and the concerts are mostly a matter of reassuring and reminding the musicians," he went through his paces with a clear, firm beat and a complete lack of histrionics (unless you count his penchant for clamping his baton between his teeth while applauding a guest soloist). In Mozart's "Linz" Symphony, he elicited a buoyant, flowing performance, with the strings singing out freely over subtly balanced winds. In the Beethoven Violin Concerto, with Henryk Szeryng as soloist, he showed what a sensitive accompanist he can be. But when he ventured into the late 19th century with Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel, or the 20th with the Samuel Barber oratorio Prayers of Kierkegaard, the results were less persuasive. Here, ensemble bobbles and overly harsh climaxes were a reminder that the style and discipline that Marriner aspires to will take some time--particularly since his three-year contract calls for him to spend no more than 14 weeks a year with the orchestra.

Born in Lincoln, a small industrial city in central England, Marriner started playing the violin at five. His first teacher was his father, a carpenter who conducted the choir at the local Methodist church and whose idea of a suitable birthday present for his son was a copy of the second violin part to the Messiah. Marriner won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, and after service in World War II and fur ther studies in Paris, eventually began freelancing with London chamber groups. Before he and some colleagues launched the Academy, he also logged many years in the string sections of London orchestras under such conductors as Herbert von Karajan, Guido Cantelli and the one who inspired him to take up conducting, Pierre Monteux.

This orchestral experience, Marriner believes, provides the answer to the most skeptical question raised about his appointment in Minnesota: Can he master the 19th century romantic works that are the staples of symphonic programming? "I know the standard repertory from the inside," he says. "I've had opinions about it all my life. Now I need to make those opinions into convictions." Comments one orchestra member: "He's feeling his way in this area. He's sharp. He never makes the same mistake twice. But right now he makes a lot of mistakes once." If, as some observers suggest, Marriner is using the orchestra to learn the symphonic repertory, then the arrangement is a tradeoff. The orchestra frankly hopes to use his worldwide standing to gain more exposure through recordings and international tours.

Meanwhile, Marriner is also making his mark in nonmusical ways. After a concert in Columbia, Mo., last Oct. 31, he took a curtain call wearing a Halloween mask, a merry prank that would have been unthinkable for the reserved, even austere, Skrowaczewski. Marriner and his wife Molly fare well on the social circuit with "the nobs," as he likes to call them. His quick candor makes him good copy for the press. "Too good," grumbles one influential patron. Immediately upon taking over last fall, he ruffled St. Paul constituents by criticizing the acoustics in their local auditorium and cheerfully supporting a movement to readopt the orchestra's pre-1968 name, the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. "Life's too short to be evasive," he says. "If you're going to make an impact you've got to lay your cards on the table." Judging from Marriner's impact, it seems likely that most of his cards will turn up aces.

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