The great British conductor was born 100 years ago today. His son Andrew picks his father’s most memorable recordings
As a five-year-old, I sat spellbound on the stairs outside our living room. The furniture had been removed to to make space for a handful of string players, there to rehearse and play with no end in mind other than the pure pleasure of making music. The conductorless string chamber group founded by my father Neville was named “The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields” (ASMF), after the church in which it rehearsed, and gave its first concert in the Trafalgar Square church on 13 November 1959.
I well remember the excitement when test pressings arrived of recordings by the newly formed group. Theirs was a fresh approach, bringing to works normally performed by the larger and weightier orchestral forces a sparkling clarity and refinement of balance – a style that characterises the Academy’s playing to this day.
