Previn Plays Gershwin - Andre Previn

 

II. Adagio – Andante con moto

Previn Plays Gershwin

Rhapsody In Blue Concerto In F

An American In Paris

London Symphony Orchestra

Andre Previn - Pianist & Conductor

London Symphony Orchestra

Producer: Christopher Bishop

Recording Engineer: Christopher Parker

Recored at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, London

Annotation Editor: Janice May

Art Direction and Design: Marvin Schwartz/Rod Dyer

Cover Photo: Ken Veeder

Jacket made in Canada

Angel SFO-36810

1972

From the inside cover: Andre Previn was born in Berlin in 1930; and, as he himself attests, owes his affinity for classical music to his father, Jack Previn, a lawyer and judge by profession, who was a devoted amateur pianist. Previn counts among his earliest recollections evenings of chamber music and lieder singer in their Berlin home. At the age of six, the young Andre was studying piano, composition and musical theory at the Berlin Hochschule, supplementing  his father's instruction in sight-reading (his "textbooks" included Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms symphonies plus Mahler and Strauss arranged for four hands).

Further opportunities for serious study were made available to Previn when the family moved to California in 1939. For composition his professors were Joseph Achorn and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and for conducting he enjoyed a considerable time under the exacting tutelage of the legendary Pierre Monteux. The following year he attended the Paris Conservatorie where he studied with Marcel Dupre, returning to California after twelve months to continue his schooling.

In 1946 at the age of sixteen, Previn joined the music department at MGM as arranger and composer of film music. This move, he recalls, was motivated primarily by the family's financial circumstances at the time. During the next fourteen years, he composed and arranged music for over 30 film scores, winning four Academy Awards for "Gigi," "Porgy And Bess," "Irma la Douce," and "My Fair Lady." Of these years at MGM Previn acknowledges both the positive and negative aspects of such an experience for a maturing musician. Of the greatest advantage was the fact that he was writing music constantly and, within days of composition, hearing his own music performed which was, as he has described the experience, "an extraordinary instant education." On the negative side, he came to increasingly regret the lack of time for serious composition, chamber music and conducting the classical repertoire. In 1960, Previn decided to concentrate solely upon classical music and for the next four years worked on refining and establishing his conducting repertoire.

It must be noted here that Previn's early career was also marked by his considerable renown as a jazz pianist. Today his performances occasionally include appearances as piano soloist (the Gershwin concerto here features Previn as conductor-pianist), or a a member of a chamber group. While his primary concentration was focusing on the field of conducting, he nonetheless retained his interest, both personally and professionally, in the piano.

Although offers came during the early 1960s from major American orchestras for podium assignments of a light nature (in essence what he had been doing in Hollywood) he accepted dates from lesser-known orchestras who invited him to conduct the more traditional classical compositions. His own summation of those appearances: "Besides the much-needed experience, I had a terrific time."

Subsequently, his catholicity was rewarded and he emerged not as "Hollywood's Andre Previn..." but as Andre Previn conductor." As he himself related: "How happy I was the first time I was given a bad review solely on the strength of having given a concert and not because I was geographically suspect."

His first recording, made in 1962, was a highly-acclaimed reading of Britten's "Sinfornia da Requiem." And some three years later, as noted, he began his distinguished recording program with the London Symphony Orchestra.

As for his conducting posts, he has served as guest conductor with the world's greatest orchestras (among them the Boston, Chicago, New York, Berlin and Stockholm ensembles). Following a successful two years as Musical Director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1968 for a three-year term. As of this writing, the contract has been extended for an additional four years. For the past several seasons, Previn and the LSO have toured extensively and recently returned from a widely-acclaimed visit to the Far East and Russia. Joining the LSO for the event were composers William Walton and Benjamin Britten in addition to soloists Peter Pears, Kyung Wha Chung, John Lill, Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich, (Of all Soviet musicians he talked with on the tour, Previn found Richter the most fascinated by American composers, particularly Gershwin.) In 1972, Previn and the LSO are scheduled to appear in major cities throughout America and Germany as well. Future plans, on Previn's agenda, include a debut at Covent Gardens conducting operas by British composers (he is a firm partisan of English music) – the stage premiere of Britten's "Owen Wingrave" and Walton's "Trollus and Cressida," both in 1973. For his recording career, the works of Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky are frequently mention as strong contenders.

From Billboard - December 4, 1971: This all Gershwin program suits pianist/conductor Previn whose dual journeys into popular and serious music compare to those of the great American composer. The popular pieces, with their equal influences of popular, jazz and serious composition, are expertly performed by the pianist and the London Symphony Orchestra and include "Rhapsody In Blue," "An American In Paris," and "Concerto In F."

Rhapsody In Blue

An American In Paris

Concerto In F

  I. Allego

  II. Adagio – Andante con moto

  III. Allegro agitato

Andre Previn, Piano

Howard Snell, Trumpet

Composed: 1925. First performed: December 3, 1925m New York Philharmonic Symphony Society, Walter Damrosch conducting, George Gershwin at the piano.

"Gershwin was not writing jazz rhapsody, as Damrosch pointed out when introducing the work, but a conventional piano concerto which utilized the musical speech of popular music and jazz for its melodic and harmonic elements. It was more a work of art than an exercise in free expression like the Rhapsody. In three moments, it is a work full of brooding melancholy and easy charm, melodic, well constructed, tellingly orchestrated (by Gershwin himself)... it is, after all, the best-known, most-played of all American concerts and is likely to remain a permanent part of the repertoire." Peter Gammond