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| Image via Wikipedia |
The 1930s saw Germany send us both its greatest scientific minds and its greatest artistic minds. Previn was one of those; born in 1930 in Germany, he was dismissed from the Berlin Conservatory in 1938 because he was jewish. His family ended in Los Angeles where one of his father's cousins was music director for Universal Studios. He was a prodigy and soon landed a job arranging music for television shows. His first was an episode of Lassie called The Sun Comes Up that when he saw the show many years later on reruns he remarked it was "the most inept score you ever heard."
But practice makes perfect, and he ended up nominated for eleven Oscars for best musical adaptation. He won four - and these were for serious films, including Gigi, Porgy & Bess, and My Fair Lady. During his long career he also collected eight Grammys.
Many of you will remember him as a composer, leading symphonies in Houston, Philadelphia, London, and Los Angeles. This was really my introduction to him, and I have a number of albums of him conducting one of these orchestras. He recorded quite a lot with his fifth wife, violinist Ann-Sophie Mutter, for whom he composed this violin concerto.
This piece is unique in the classical music posts that I've done here. There are very few selections from the 20th Century, and this (while written in the 20th) was not premiered until 2002 (the 21st Century). As you can imagine, I don't mostly care for modern classical music. However, I did want to highlight Previn's composition talent, which was serious. He wasn't just a conductor.
In fact, he was an incredibly versatile musician, working - and performing - professionally with many of the Jazz greats. He recorded with Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson, and this 1974 television show with Peterson is charming in part due to the lack of ego on display by both men.
His passing is something that I find sad. More than the passing of a man's life, he represents the passing of an age where entertainment still aspired to great heights even if those aspirations often fell short. That sense of art seems gone now, and we are all diminished.
Rest in Peace, Andre. Thanks for all the great music.
UPDATE 3 March 2019 12:24: Via Dwight (obits are his specialty, after all) we find this hilarious story from Previn's life: "Let's call Shostakovich." LOL.
2 comments:
Impressive in so many ways, thank you for this. I really had no idea about these people.
One of the reasons why "Let's call Shostakovich." amuses me so much is: I can see myself and my circle of friends saying something very much like that when we were younger and it was very late at night.
Though we never actually called Shostakovich ourselves, since he was, technically, dead by the time we reached that level of immaturity.
==Dwight
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