Harry Blech

Harry Blech was born in London in March 1910, into a Jewish family of Latvian origin. He studied violin and conducting at the Royal Manchester College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, and worked through his twenties as a violinist — first with the Hallé Orchestra under Sir Hamilton Harty, then as leader of the Blech String Quartet, which he founded in 1933 and which became one of the leading chamber ensembles in Britain through the 1930s and 1940s.

He turned to conducting in 1949, founding the London Mozart Players the same year as a chamber orchestra dedicated to the Classical repertoire — particularly Mozart and Haydn — at a time when historically-informed performance was still some decades away and the standard orchestral approach to that repertoire was full-symphonic. He remained the orchestra’s principal conductor for thirty-five years until 1984, building a substantial recorded legacy and shaping British performance practice in Mozart through the post-war decades. He also worked regularly with the Boyd Neel Orchestra and the Philharmonia.

Blech was appointed CBE in 1962. He died in London in May 1999. Music Preserved’s archive includes a range of his work with the London Mozart Players and his earlier chamber appearances.