by Sir Roger Norrington, who died at the age of 91, was a leading figure in the period in the instrument movement and a strong and often controversial advocate of musical authenticity.
Norrington’s search for authenticity has dragged on far beyond the use of periodic instruments and into the more controversial areas of tempos and technology, in which he led campaigns in favor of the metronome markings of the composers, and against Vibrato’s “modern drug”, which, as he claimed, was not used in the 1930s.
But while most critics accepted his treatment of baroque and classic repertoire, in which his pioneer with the Schütz choir and the London classic players revealed the original beauty and transparency of harmony, some of the idea of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner or Mahler, who had given the treatment of Norrington in Norrington.
His interpretations of Beethoven, in particular, who, like the composer’s own metronome markings, were dismissed by some as “impried”. Others found his performances a revelation, and his pioneer of Beethoven symphonies with the time instruments of the London classic players recorded in the 1980s won the prices recorded for the world for EMI for EMI all over the world.
Roger Arthur Carver Norrington was born on March 16, 1934 in a university family in Oxford. His father, Sir Arthur Norrington, was Vice Chancellor of Oxford and the author of the Norrington League Table, which ranks the Oxford Colleges. Both parents were musical and met in the singing of Gilbert and Sullivan in an amateur production. His mother was a good pianist and the young Roger learned the violin and sang as a young soprano.
After being evacuated to Canada during the war, he returned to Oxford at the age of 10 and was sent to the dragon school, where he spoke for the choir in Iolanthe and received the lead. He continued to the Westminster School and read English at Clare College in Cambridge after the national service as a RAF fighter aircraft in Bournemouth.
After graduating, he took on a job at Oxford University Press, where he published religious books. In his free time he sang in a few choirs as a tenor, played in an orchestra and quartet and made an odd piece conducting.
In the early 1960s, he came across Heinrich Schütz’s work, at that time a relatively unknown German composer from the 17th century, whose work had just been published in Germany. Determined to carry out as much of it as possible, Norrington founded the Schütz Choir in 1962 and achieved a performance in London.
In the audience, Keith Falkner was the director of the Royal College of Music, who invited Norrington to study on college. He resigned with his post at OUP and studied conducting under Sir Adrian Boult, played Percussion in the RCM orchestra and continued his studies on the history of the orchestra.
In 1972 the Schüttz Choir was wound up and Norrington then organized the Messiah of the first period-in Handel’s church at Hannover Square, London and Monteverdi Vespers. In 1978 he founded the London classic players with whom he expanded his investigation into the repertoire in the next 20 years and asked the best scholars to ask how the music on the composer day would have been played. From 1969 to 1984 he was music director of Kent Opera and carried out more than 400 performances of 40 different works.
Norrington’s Beethoven recordings followed other no less stimulating interpretations of other composers of the 18th and 19th centuries. He was the first to carry out authentic period instruments from Haydn’s creation, Mozart’s Magic Flute, Berlioz ‘Symphony Fantastique, Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 and many other works. But he did not limit himself to time instruments and saw it as important to get an authentic sound out of modern instruments.
He worked as a guest conductor with orchestras in Europe and America, which were carried out in Covent Garden and the English National Opera and in Italy in La Scala, La Fenice and the Maggio Musicale.
A Norrington concert was an unusual experience, the performance often papped with Chummy degrees and mini-lectures of the conductor. The highlight of his concert career was the “experiences”, a number of intensive whole weekends at the London South Bank, which devoted themselves to studying and carrying out the work of certain composers.
Behind the friendly chat, some found that Norrington’s music painting gave a didactic quality that made little space for opposition. But the righteous outrage of the traditionalists only seemed to refuel the Protestant fire of Norrington, and he particularly enjoyed providing historical evidence in order to whip his critics.
In the 1990s he was closely associated with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the orchestra of the age of enlightenment, which took over the work of the London classic players in 1997. But he spent a lot of time abroad, and was in 1997 the following year in 2016, in which he was the London -London -london -london -london -london -london -radon -radio -Symphon with the London -Hilfsgarten -Symphony with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony in the London -Radio -orchestra brought up. Orchestra’s final performance at the proms before his merger with SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg.
When Norrington’s interpretations of Beethoven sent shock waves through the musical establishment, the reaction to his interpretations by Wagner and Mahler was even more polarized: his non-vibrato recording of Mahler’s second symphony with the Stuttgart orchestra, which was pushed back from horror according to traditionalists.
In other Proms appearances, he carried out the first night in 2006 and the last night of 2008. From 2011 he was director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra.
In the early nineties, skin cancer was diagnosed with Norrington, and in 1995 he was subjected to successful operation to remove a brain tumor.
Roger Norrington was appointed an OBE in 1980, drove to CBE in 1990 and made a knight in 1997.
He was married twice, first in 1964 (resolved in 1982) with Susan McLean May, with whom he had a son and a daughter, and second in 1986 to the dancer and choreographer Kay Lawrence, with whom he founded the early opera project to complement his concert work in the opera in the period, and with whom he had a son.
Sir Roger Norrington, born March 16, 1934, died on July 18, 2025
