Scoring the Marriner 100

It would be hard to overstate the popularity of The Academy of St Martin in the Fields, whose reputation and name recognition soared following its recording of all the music for the soundtrack of the 1984 film Amadeus, which occurred about halfway through the 50-year leadership of founding artistic director Sir Neville Marriner. The album was just one of 500 recordings released by ASMF under Marriner’s baton, and the London-based chamber orchestra also amped up its world tours, appearing in all the greatest concert halls of the world. 

The great American violinist and composer Joshua Bell took over as music director of ASMF when Marriner retired in 2011, just five years before his death at 92. Bell and the orchestra will mark Marriner’s centennial later this month with a series of events in London called “Marriner 100,” with a centerpiece of a new commission by multiple Grammy-winning composer Vince Mendoza. But first the new work – which features Marriner’s grandson Douglas, a jazz-based drummer, as soloist – gets its world premiere right here in town when CAMA brings ASMF back to the Granada on April 2. 

Mendoza twice surprised drummer Douglas Marriner (whose father Andrew was the former longtime principal clarinetist of the London Symphony) when creating Flight of Moving Days. First by agreeing to the commission – “I thought it was a longshot, just a dream, but he emailed ASMF’s CEO to say yes in 15 minutes,” Marriner said – and then secondly when he finished the work. “The score showed up in my inbox on Christmas Eve, with a message from Vince that said, ‘I was going to buy you a pair of socks for Christmas, but instead I wrote you a piece.’”

Q. With your family history, was there any way you weren’t going to be a musician? 

A. They didn’t have to convince me, because I actually grew up in the apartment below my grandfather, so I was always surrounded by incredible music and wonderful musicians, which was more than enough reason. I might be practicing the piano down in my part of the house, and upstairs I might hear Alfred Brendel or some other incredible pianist visiting Neville. I managed to absorb an awful lot of very good music when I was young. Having grown up as the band baby on the tour bus and in the recording studios, this is a very full circle moment to be rejoining what really is the family orchestra. 

How did you turn towards drums and percussion? 

I was impressed by how my grandfather could pull invisible puppet strings of the orchestra and have influence over the sound. An improvising jazz drummer was the perfect amalgamation of both a conductor and a composer, because when we improvise, we compose in real time… I also wanted to broaden the reach (of) and translate those musical values I’d absorbed, applying my classical sensibility to help with the architectural decisions in terms of sculpting balance and dynamics.

Did you ever work professionally with Neville?

No, but he did conduct my school choir once when I was 10. It was amazing to have him facing me whilst he worked, seeing how he communicated with people my age. It was fun but he always kept you on your toes. There was always a very witty remark to make sure that everybody gave their absolute best. I also got to play with my dad for my mother’s 50th birthday, when I transcribed Benny Goodman’s solo from “After You’ve Gone” from the Carnegie Hall recording for him… Now it feels so full circle to be playing with ASMF for Marriner 100. 

What can you share about Flight of Moving Days?

It’s been a very collaborative process, and Vince has some very specifically orchestrated sections and others that are rather more improvisational, straddling the worlds of classical and jazz. It feels like the musical embodiment of a journey, representing both my granddad’s legacy and the changing nature of the ensemble and how music moves with time. The narrative is that I’m like a party guest who at first is an intruder and eventually becomes the life and soul of it. Musically, there are moments that are full and luscious, others that are more exposed and conversational, with playful elements between the violin and the drums, all part of Vince’s extraordinary harmonic palette, but with some new angles.