Neville Marriner Quotations

Mozart has written opera, symphony, sacred and chamber music - not to mention his piano and violin concerti.

We don't want other people poking into our artistic pie.

Music is a continuum and the modern and avant-garde composers of today will be part of the standard repertoire 30 years from now.

I would like new people with new ideas to come into it and change it.

So I've never found there was any particular separation between the two cultures at all, musically speaking.

So I think we got together as the Academy to give ourselves that sort of responsibility and to play well.

Taste is changing, style is changing, and players abilities are changing.

The awful thing about a conductor becoming geriatric is that you seem to become more desirable, not less.

There are some sounds that English singers find quite difficult to manipulate.

One of the great virtues, apart from the pleasure of performing these works, is that it's opened up an entirely new, expansive repertoire of American Jewish music.

Most Beethoven symphonies require 80 or more instruments, and the late romantics even more.

As you know, there are certain languages that lend themselves very easily to vocal use.

But the most important test is to take them on tour and see if you can bear to spend time with them.

I think the quality of something like the Beveridge, for instance, will have a life of its own.

I think we were all frustrated with our daily routine.

If the (British) Arts Council give you money, they also tell you how to spend it.

If we perform the romantic repertoire we need more musicians.

One thing we were looking for from the start was players who really fit together, who sounded in tune.

So in one leap we had gone from being a friendly society to something almost professional.

This American Jewish music is a new experience for us at least consciously.

Before, we may have taken part in it without even thinking it was American Jewish, but in this case, I think, you have now perhaps pointed us in a direction of a new interest in this repertoire.

Initially we performed in halls with capacities of 1,000.

Initially we performed in halls with capacities of 1,000.

I just wish, maybe, that I'd started conducting earlier. I was about 40 when I started. Apart from that I don't really have any regrets. Is that bad?