Conductor and music scholar Christopher Fifield passed away on Jan. 19.

Fifield studied at the University of Manchester and the Musikhochschule in Cologne. He began his conducting career as deputy music director at Cape Town Opera. Later he was named the director of music at University College London and as chorus master to Chelsea Opera Group. For 12 years he was on staff at Glyndebourne, and from 1982 until 2022, Fifield served as the music director of the Lambeth Orchestra in South London.

He conducted the world premiere recordings of late-19th century orchestral music by Frederic Cliffe, Xaver and Philipp Scharwenka, Andreas Hallen, Robert Hermann, Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee, and Richard Franck. Fifield’s CDs were produced under the Swedish label Sterling.

Fifield’s scholarly work includes “Conducting Wagner: section of Wagner in Performance,” published in 1992 by the Yale University Press, “The German Symphony between Beethoven and Brahms: The Fall and Rise of a Genre,” which was his thesis while earning his PhD from University of Bristol, and several contributions to The Oxford Companion to Music and MusicWeb International. He was the biographer of Max Bruch and Hans Richter. Fifield also edited the Letters and Diaries of Kathleen Ferrier and wrote a meticulously researched history of Ibbs and Tillett, the artists and management agency.

Fifield died from complications of dementia. The funeral service took place at Beckenham Crematorium on Feb. 25.