Page 171 - ASMF Marriner 100 Coverage Book

orchestra on modern instruments. Some of these CDs, like Haydn’s Grandes
Masses and the Mozart series from the 1980s (great symphonies and concertos
with Christian Zacharias), which we rarely listened to (Gardiner and others
oblige), deserve more than a tender re-listening ( magnificent dosage of winds)
and are a balm to the heart.

Marriner had understood, from 1970, the benefit of being available for
multiple labels and to make a name for himself as an exquisite accompanist. In
his first EMI recording, he accompanied Josef Suk in the romances of Beethoven
and rondos of Mozart and Schubert. In his second album, Britten with Heather
Harper and Robert Tear the same year, he grasped the challenge of not being
labeled a “baroque conductor”. Everything is built from the start. Warner
collecting the EMI and Erato catalogs, we find him accompanying the English

trumpeter John Wilbraham in 1973 (EMI) and Maurice André in 1974 (Erato).

Some creations fill holes in a catalog (Te Deum of Charpentier) without bringing
anything, some remakes are useless (Brandenburg, Messiah in German), many
records feature soloists, such as Elly Ameling and Janet Baker in Bach, Kathleen
Battle in Händel or Barbara Hendricks in Mozart. And there are these other
projects, the overtures of Suppé or Rossini, the symphony of Bizet, Pulcinella and
a few rarities (Tippett, Walton, Copland, Bloch, Wolf-Ferrari) which pleased the
conductor and showed the range and curiosity of a skillful and warm musician
who certainly did not deserve the label of “routine” attached by people who
didn’t listen to him.