Raymond Leppard, the English-born American conductor who was one of the pioneers of the early music revival in the 1950s and ’60s and went on to lead a number of modern orchestras, including the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, where he was music director from 1987 to 2001, has died at 92.
In addition to preparing modern performing editions of 17th-century operas – Monteverdi’s “L’Incoronazione di Poppea,” Francesco Cavalli’s “La Calisto” and “L’Ormindo” – Leppard composed film scores for “Lord of the Flies” and “Alfred the Great” in the 1960s.
In his book “Authenticity in Music” (1988), Leppard took issue with early music performance practices of later generations of scholar-performers.
(Leppard’s 1967 Philips recordings of movements from Handel’s “Concerti a due Cori” with the English Chamber Orchestra are used as theme music on Letter V Classical Radio.)
An obituary by The New York Times’ Daniel J. Wakin:
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