Time & Perspective Quote by Neville Marriner

The line lands with the dry practicality of someone who’s spent a lifetime turning lofty art into an actual working life. Neville Marriner isn’t talking about “chemistry” in the romantic, behind-the-scenes-montage sense. He’s talking about the brutal, mundane truth of musicianship: the real audition happens after the applause, in airports and budget hotels, during rehearsals that start too early and dinners that run too late.

The intent is half advice, half warning. Talent can be measured in minutes; temperament takes weeks. A touring ensemble is less like a collection of virtuosos and more like a small, stressed-out society with bad sleep and tight schedules. Marriner’s phrasing - “bear to spend time with them” - is pointedly unglamorous. It suggests that the deciding factor in artistic success is often not brilliance but tolerability: ego levels, listening habits, resilience, the ability to disagree without poisoning the room.

There’s subtext here about leadership, too. Marriner, a builder of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, knew that a group’s sound is inseparable from its social ecosystem. “Most important test” reframes professionalism as character under pressure. The context is the postwar classical world where touring became both lifeline and crucible: endless travel, constant performance, high stakes, low patience.

It’s a quietly radical standard. Not “Are they the best?” but “Will they make the work possible?” In an industry that worships genius, Marriner elevates the underrated virtue of being good company.