April 17, 2008
Arguably, no musician has ever better exemplified excellence in both classical music and jazz than 78-year-old composer, conductor and pianist André Previn. Previn’s ascent to the pinnacle in both fields has been an interesting story, and one with more than a few remarkable twists.
Andreas Ludwig Priwin was born in Berlin, Germany on April 6, 1929, the youngest child of a wealthy, musical Russian Jewish family. His father Jacob was a respected attorney and accomplished amateur pianist, and his late brother Steve was a noted director. When André was discovered at age six to have perfect pitch, he was enrolled in the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. In 1938, ahead of the Nazi menace, his family moved to Paris, where Previn studied at the Conservatoire; the following year, on the advice of his uncle (who was working as a film cutter at MGM), the family emigrated to the United States and settled here in Los Angeles, where André became a naturalized American citizen in 1943 at the age of 14.
Previn continued his musical training here, studying piano, theory and composition with Joseph Achron and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and practicing up to six hours a day. He worked professionally as a jazz pianist and arranger for MGM while still in high school. At the age of 16, Previn’s keen study of the recordings of pianists Art Tatum and Thomas “Fats” Waller led to his substituting on a film track for José Iturbi in a scene requiring a jazz solo that Iturbi couldn’t play!
In 1945, Previn made his first recording for the Sunset label; his early recordings for RCA were substantial hits and earned him considerable success. At his summer 1946 graduation from Beverly Hills High School, Previn on the piano accompanied Richard M. Sherman, playing the flute. Coincidentally, twenty-one years later, both composers won Oscars for different films, each winning in a separate musical category!
After his army service, during which he studied conducting in San Francisco with Pierre Monteux, Previn settled in Los Angeles and resumed an active career as a pianist, working with musicians such as Benny Goodman, Herb Ellis, Shorty Rogers, Pete Rugolo, Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, and Ella Fitzgerald. Previn played with the acclaimed Jazz at the Philharmonic All-Stars here in Los Angeles in 1952, and in 1956, his collaboration with drummer Shelly Manne on the album My Fair Lady started a fashion for jazz albums based on the music from Broadway musicals that continued to be popular for many years. In fact, the My Fair Lady album was the first gold jazz recording in history.
Previn’s career flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s with musical hits that he adapted from the theatrical stage for films, and original scores he composed and conducted for other musicals and dramas. Having first signed a contract at MGM when he turned 18, he became musical director there, where he was nominated for sixteen Academy Awards, and won four.
Success in the jazz and Hollywood arenas did not satisfy his other musical calling, however. According to his own account in No Minor Chords—My Days in Hollywood, he longed to be part of the inner circle of what he regarded as the legitimate world of classical music. Hollywood was not the place to write and perform serious music. In 1965 he began recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, and from 1967 to 1970, he was conductor-in-chief of the Houston Symphony Orchestra.
In 1968, Previn assumed the position of principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 1979 (he has been Conductor Laureate since 1993). From 1976 until 1984, he served as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; in both of these roles he brought significant visibility to the orchestra through television appearances. In London, the vehicle was André Previn’s Music Night; in Pittsburgh, a TV series entitled Previn and the Pittsburgh.
Previn was named music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1984, officially assuming the role in 1985 and continuing until 1989. (He also served as music director and then as principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from 1985-1991.) In 2006, he completed a four-year stint as music director of the Oslo Philharmonic. He has been a frequent guest with the world’s major orchestras, both in concerts and recordings, appearing annually with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and Vienna Philharmonic, to name a few. As Previn himself says, “I’m the only Vienna Philharmonic conductor who ever worked the Apollo Theatre.”
I’ll be back with Part 2 of our story next week.
1 comment
Please does anyone know of a course/tuition available in Orchestral Scoring. Information regarding contact, location, duration, costs etc. would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.