Andre Previn in conversation

well Andre that's very nice of you to come speak to us and now of course we and the LSO and I suppose the world as a whole knows you best as a conductive and there's a fantastic pianist but keep going keep going instant you enjoy that hahaha but you're a composer too and in many ways I'd suppose your your professional life started as a composer in Holland I think it's early in that way too because I in the last oh in the last eight or ten years I've composed more than I did in the thirty before that I just keep going and going I mean for instance now I don't want this sounds like self aggrandizement I don't mean that but I mean I have eight Commission's to fulfill that's photos and so I like composing very much I tell you one reason I like composing and you'll certainly understand this it doesn't involve travel you know I don't care where I am I can compose of course so I was so used to equating making music with airports as you are that's the idea of doing something I like musically wherever I happen to be as long as there's pencil and paper appeals to me greatly of course yeah and you're having your new opera brief encounter yeah which was getting commissioned by Houston Opera House yeah Houston Opera the first one streetcar named desire which I think you played here we did yeah that was commissioned in San Francisco and this one brief encounter in Houston and I like that very much I like conducting opera too something about the combination of theatre and music that is particularly happy making for me well of course you started composing many many years ago in Hollywood you have anything you can tell us something about those days well there's very little I mean I enjoyed myself and I met a lot of brilliantly gifted people but as a composer it isn't very satisfying because you are given the roadmap which you must follow not only in terms of subject matter but in terms of split seconds so there's no use you're trying to develop an idea if you've got 26 and 2/3 seconds and say it and of course and so I was I mean I did a lot of movies but I was very at least equipped I haven't set foot in a movie studio now Oh God in about Oh close to 40 years well I really don't miss it do you think it was a good discipline though oh one of your future wonderful first of all it gave me great experience in orchestrating in orchestrating very quickly and those orchestras those contract orchestras in the big cities were not only filled with very good players but they they could sang Creed there was just nothing like it because they would come in in the morning and they had no idea whether they were going to do you know excerpt of a Bruckner symphony or Tom and Jerry I didn't matter to that you know I back sit down okay we'll play it and that was admirable and then was a very glamorous they're not my end of it no no no no I mean the composers in the speak studios we were seated well below the salt you actually won several Oscars though yeah what's your idea luckily I can save this with AMA see it didn't much matter to me even then right and I was I enjoyed meeting all the talented people and the other composers and the orchestrators and directors and writers but the actress a lot of them were very very nice and I had a lot of friends among the actors but I didn't really hang out with them of course the other sir was a big film music playing Orchestra and there is a rumor that it was you that actually introduced John Williams to us because we've done all this doorway yes that's true did you phone him up and tell him to yeah yes yes come to the ELISA but he was zooming he loved it he was he was very taken with it so what happened after Hollywood what was what was the next stop for you actually London yes yeah no no well I had a couple of years in Houston as music director of that orchestras a good Orchestra loathesome City and then and then I started coming here more and more and I finally bought house in Surrey and just moved here I lived in England in that little village for 20 years so I still miss that very very much well I saw fell in love with you and appointed you of course is principal conductor yeah but these days very important to you in your life oh yes it was the most important thing that ever happened to me and it was it was totally unexpected from me I was a guest on do you remember a show called Desert Island Discs oh yes it's still going no it is indeed yeah well anyway I was on that and I had a good time and mr. Plumlee I remember and he said before I left I said well you know he said any conductor worth his salt has an ambition that was on Orchestra I mean which is yours is it Berlin or Vienna or Boston or New York or what and I said in absolute honesty know what I'd like most of all is the LSL and I thought it was never Neverland anyway you know and I went back to my hotel and a couple days later they came this small group of people from the Ella so when they offered me the job and I almost fell out the window it was wonderful how long did it take you to make up your mind about three seconds what is it about the LSO that attracted you this is the sound well it's everything I mean first of all it's just in terms of playing not only as a body of men but player for player it's a very great Orchestra it was then and it is now and it's a real virtual Orchestra there's nothing that you can find fault with with the Vienna Philharmonic for instance or the Berlin but they're all very you know they come in in the real Teicher suit and they play and the LSO was always kind of rowdy and I like that I thought it was it was much much more the kind of environment that I knew one that I liked of all the serious orchestras I've ever stood in front of the the LSO s that are the greatest sight reader that I've ever seen because they really you know we've we used to do a lot of contemporary music I think more than you do now I'm not sure and nothing ever fazes anybody I remember you know in my youth Andre Clemens music night on television and that really brought classical music to look right into the words nice of you to remember but it's absolutely true and there was a time with the music night and with the the interviews I did with other films I mean television films where we were the LSO and I were on television almost every week and of course what that does to box office is beyond the scripts little Adele mean there was a household name because it was it was harder to get a good seat for one of our concerts than it was to go and see a show on the West End yep you know and I'm sorry that the days of having good serious music on television seem to be completely over you know and I love when they say well you know if we put on serious music with with the LSO or with any big Orchestra and you I mean who would listen listen to it maybe maybe a million people a week and I was thinking it's a lot of people but in terms of television it's not so we're playing your double bass and violin double concerto in December would you like to tell us something about that so yes he prepared I think that's an odd thing that I've to write but Alice V motor has a Foundation which helps young musicians to a great extent and a lot of very good people come out of it and she talked to me about a year ago and she said I have found this phenomenal Romanian kid who plays bass and I said leave it out she said no and I went to hear him and he was almost the damnedest string player I've ever heard and I then talked through a few of my conducting friends and tried to talk them into use him as soloist and I don't remember who it was but somebody said but if what's he gonna play you can't play both assini every time could that's so she said well why don't you write him something and then she said write something for him and me because that way it'll it'll get it easier for him to get it you know a gig out of it so what sort of style is it in oh it's it's fairly conservative you know so it's not like becae they able to see neat no no no it's pretty busy for the bass yeah but I mean it's it's not an eternal peace but and I had fun with it I mean it was an orchestration problem too because when he plays you really got to get out of the way yeah but he is will you hear him he is really something that boy his name is Roman Baths galore wonderful well Andre thank you very much Oh coming thank you to us your visits are always well I'd like to know come so always a pleasure I'll be back in a couple months yes I guess we look forward to that okay oh thanks thanks honey thank you

Channel: London Symphony Orchestra

Views: 44,374

Rating: 4.9381442 out of 5

Keywords: LSO, Andre, Previn, Lennox MacKenzie, London, Symphony, Orchestra

Id: Zgr5aWE-rIs

Length: 10min 40sec (640 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 11 2008