<\/p>
The New Yorker<\/em> magazine once ran a cartoon featuring two parrots whose vocabulary has been pilfered from the radio. One says, \u2018That was the Academy of St Martin in the Fields\u2019; the other adds, \u2018conducted by Sir Neville Marriner\u2019. And that the joke worked in a publication with a general, worldwide readership was telling.<\/p> Throughout more than half a century, the Academy and Marriner were joined umbilically into an uber-brand, commanding instant recognition in the universe of music. Together they toured the world, endlessly. Together they made more recordings than any other conductor\/ensemble partnership in history, their only serious rival being Herbert von Karajan<\/a><\/strong> and the Berlin Phil<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p> And although he eventually passed the Academy\u2019s artistic direction over to Joshua Bell<\/a><\/strong>, Marriner remained closely involved as Life President until life left him in 2016 \u2013 continuing, as his son Andrew understatedly puts it, to be \u2018mentioned in dispatches\u2019 whenever the ensemble gets a name-check.<\/p>