Robert Smissen, principal viola of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, looks back in appreciation at three decades of work and friendship with the late conductor

On the whole players don’t “do” conductors, it’s a blue collar/white collar thing. Nev was different, he was much further up the food chain, but he was our Nev. If he was in the canteen or at the airport, you ate with him, chatted to him, everyone did.

While at college, I had ushered for Academy concerts in the London church of St Martin in the Fields, listened to the recordings and dreamt of playing with the band. A few years later I heard that the Academy was holding auditions (not for a job, none of us are contracted), did one, got my foot in the door and here I still am, now principal viola, over 30 years later.

Terrible with soloists’ names, he soon got wise to us feeding him the wrong names after his whispered 'Who’s that?'

January is Germany for the Academy, always has been. I can still feel the excitement of Beethoven symphonies, our parts edited and meticulously marked by him, night after night to packed audiences. His drive and energy was contagious.

He could be mercurial with us in rehearsals, desk by desk “...can’t get the players ... instruments made of calico ... woodwind intonation ... sounds like someone kicking a dead sheep,” I can hear him saying – and if not him, Steve Orton our principal cello, imitating him and saying it for him. Nev always got a good string sound though – listen to our Elgar Symphony, Walton film music, any Mozart recordings, everyone knew they had to be on their mettle.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Neville Marriner, in ‘uniform’ for a rehearsal. Photograph: Ullstein Bild/Getty Images

Many years ago we spent a hot week or two recording opera up at Walthamstow town hall. The new trend was bottled water, all the singers had theirs and so did Nev. I emptied his out during a break and filled it with gin. Eventually, he did take a sip, looked at me, swallowed. No more was said.

Terrible with soloists’ names, he soon got wise to us feeding him the wrong names after his whispered “Who’s that?”



Neville had a rehearsal uniform, a shirt he put on over his white polo neck when he arrived at “the office”. His latest liveries (last changed sometime in the 90s) bore a striking resemblance to the British Airways colours and stripes, the other shirt was more Malaysian airlines; both are permanently etched in our collective memories so that anywhere we see those colours we think of him.

Always open-handed with any whip-round for players or ASMF staff, his generosity of spirit extended to his trigger finger while umpiring our occasional cricket games, especially when I was bowling. Once, after one atrocious appeal and decision, our opposition’s captain was called back – by our side. For many years, the Academy summer matches with lunch courtesy of his wife Molly, down in Devon, were inked into our diaries – and one wit suggested that playing cricket was the Academy’s version of the casting couch.



Robert Smissen. Photograph: London Chamber Music Society

Then there’s the famous encore story. Our three stock encores for many years were Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro overture, a Brahms Hungarian dance and the slow movement of Mendelssohn’s Reformation symphony. We had them ready in a prescribed order, all beautiful in their own right, but not when played simultaneously. Neville was standing there waving frantically shouting “idiots, idiots”. I think the Brahms triumphed after about 16 bars. Recently we’ve been playing Percy Grainger’s arrangement of Danny Boy as an encore with Nev, latterly on a Far East tour earlier in the year. I’m not sure any of us will be able to play that for a while.

New blood and flexibility (we all have other musical commitments) have always been part of the game plan, but there are memes that run through the Academy. Trace them back and you’ll find Neville. Sure, when we boarded a plane, he turned left and we turned right, but he was one of us, he knew it and we felt it.