André Previn is one of the most versatile figures in music. He has made successful jazz albums, won Oscars for his film scores, conducted some of the best orchestras in the world, and even emerged as a popular personality on television.
Previn was born in Berlin, Germany, on April 6, 1929, of Russian-Jewish parents. He studied piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, and at the Paris Conservatory after his family moved to Paris in 1938. The following year they emigrated to Los Angeles, where Previn’s great-uncle, Charles Previn, was music director at Universal Studios. Previn became an American citizen in 1943, at the age of 14.
While still in high school, Previn worked as a jazz pianist and wrote orchestrations for MGM. Later, he was hired as the studio’s music director. His jazz trio achieved considerable success in the 1950s and his jazzed up version of My Fair Lady (in collaboration with Shelly Manne) started his run of jazz albums made from Broadway musical scores.
As an orchestral conductor, Previn has enjoyed a distinguished career. He has been conductor of—among others—the Houston Symphony Orchestra (1967–69), the London Symphony Orchestra (1968–79), the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1976–84), and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (1985–90). Although Previn is immensely popular as a conductor, his repertoire is considered by many critics to be limited, generally consisting of light orchestral works ranging from Mozart to BRITTEN.
During his time with the London Symphony Orchestra, he settled in England and became well known for his television work, popularising classical music. He also composed the music for Tom Stoppard’s play for actors and orchestra, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour(1978).
Previn also composed film scores from 1949 until 1982, and was involved in the musical direction and supervision of many films. He received Academy Awards for his work on the scores of Gigi (1958), Porgy and Bess (1959), Irma la Douce (1963), and My Fair Lady (1964). In each case, Previn was honoured for his ability to adapt the musical scores of others to the demands of the screen. In addition, he has received six further nominations, mostly for adaptations of existing scores, but also for his original score for Elmer Gantry (1960).
One of Previn’s finest scores was for Sidney Lumet’s 1962 adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s stage play, Long Day’s Journey into Night. Confining himself to piano, Previn created a highly dramatic style of writing that falls somewhere between BARTÓK and Keith JARRETT. The opening sequence is dark and tense in tone, expertly establishing the claustrophobic mood of the drama. Later, he wrote a bittersweet waltz worthy of POULENC, using it to underscore the unbalanced world of the character played by Katharine Hepburn—the drug-addicted mother of a dysfunctional family.
The score for Two for the Seesaw (1962) is an example of Previn’s more commercial film writing. Created for solo trumpet, solo saxophone, horns, and strings, it recalls similar work by Henry Mancini and Elmer BERNSTEIN. Even when he works in the Hollywood mainstream, however, there is a quality to Previn’s melodic and harmonic language that raises his music to the level of composers such as Aaron COPLAND and Leonard BERNSTEIN.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Previn has continued to work in a variety of musical styles, and one of his most recent projects was a jazz album with bass player Ray Brown and opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa.
Richard Trombley
SEE ALSO:
ARRANGERS; FILM MUSIC; FILM MUSICALS.
FURTHER READING
Freedland, Michael. André Previn (London: Century, 1991);
Previn, André. No Minor Chords: My Days in Hollywood (New York: Doubleday, 1991);
Ruttencutter, Helen Drees. Previn (New York: St. Martin’s/Marek, 1986).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
André Previn Plays Harold Arlen; Long Day’s Journey into Night; My Fair Lady; Two for the Seesaw.