“André Previn, who blurred the boundaries between jazz, pop and classical music—and between composing, conducting and performing—in an extraordinarily eclectic, award-filled career, died Thursday morning at his home in Manhattan,” writes James Barron in Thursday’s (2/28) New York Times. “He was 89…. Mr. Previn wrote or arranged the music for several dozen movies…. Audiences also knew him as a jazz pianist who appeared with Ella Fitzgerald, among others, and as a composer who turned out musicals, orchestral works, chamber music, two operas and several concertos for his fifth wife, the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. Mr. Previn was also the music director or principal conductor of a half-dozen orchestras.” He was music director of the Houston Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic; principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic; and principal guest conductor of Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra. “In the 1960s, he appeared in sold-out classical and jazz concerts…. Born Andreas Ludwig Prewin on April 6, 1929, in Berlin [he] became an American citizen in 1943…. Mr. Previn wrote several books, including ‘Orchestra’ (1985), a depiction of the lives of orchestral musicians, and a memoir of his movie experiences, ‘No Minor Chords: My Days in Hollywood’ (1991)…. ‘When I go to Tanglewood to teach,’ [he said], the kids … see a movie on the late, late show … And then I have to confess that the man who manufactured harp glissandos for Esther Williams to dive to was actually me.’ ”
Posted March 1, 2019
In photo: André Previn conducts the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, 1984.
