Academy of St Martin in the Fields Essentials

One of the finest, most frequently recorded and versatile orchestras, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields was founded by Neville Marriner in 1958. By the 1980s, the orchestra had become a byword for quality recordings, releasing on Philips hundreds of albums of music from the Baroque to 20th-century English music and so much in between. Many of them are still held up as benchmark performances. Today, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields enjoys life under the baton of violinist Joshua Bell, and together this year they’re celebrating what would have been Marriner’s 100th birthday, and touring the States between 17 March and 7 April. In this specially selected playlist, you can enjoy a wide spectrum of music, all performed in that quintessentially clean, expressive St Martin style. Among the choices are works close to Bell’s heart. Firstly, Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, a piece that sits alongside the composer’s First Violin Concerto as among his finest. “I grew up listening to the old Heifetz recording of the Scottish Fantasy when I was very young,” he says, “and finally got to record it myself with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.” Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 is one of the hundreds of major works that Neville Marriner recorded with the Academy. For Bell, who is conducting it on tour with the orchestra later in 2024, the piece is intensely joyful from start to finish. “This is a piece of Brahms that some people often compare to Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, in that it’s just pure love of nature and life,” he says, “and it’s very life-affirming.” There’s more Brahms, this time in the shape of the wonderful Double Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra. As Bell relates, Brahms wrote the piece for his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim: “I think it was a bit of a conciliatory gift because they had a bit of a falling out,” he says. “The piece is all about resolution and friendship, and there’s something very, very beautiful about it.” In this recording, Bell performs the work with his close friend, the great cellist Steven Isserlis. Finally, one of the greatest, but perhaps lesser appreciated of Beethoven’s works, the Fourth Symphony. It holds special memories for Joshua Bell. “Many years ago, just before I became music director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields,” he remembers, “I recorded the Beethoven Seventh and Fourth Symphonies with the orchestra, directing from the chair. “I think it’s one of his great joyous symphonies that is overlooked in some cases. It’s absolutely brilliant. Anyone who’s said Beethoven doesn’t have a sense of humour or sense of fun is wrong—he certainly did, and it shows in this last movement!”