André Previn discography explained

See main article: André Previn.

André George Previn, (; born Andreas Ludwig Priwin; April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019)[1] [2] was a German-American pianist, conductor, and composer. Previn won four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings (and one more for his Lifetime Achievement).

Recordings

Previn's discography contains hundreds of recordings in film, jazz, classical music and contemporary classical music. Because of the huge number of recordings, the following lists are necessarily highly selective. A full discography (including LP/CD record codes) is available in Frédéric Döhl: André Previn. Musikalische Vielseitigkeit und ästhetische Erfahrung, Stuttgart 2012, pp. 295–319.

Film music

Most of the films which incorporate Previn's music are still available as videos/DVDs and/or as soundtrack records. Some of his soundtracks have been reissued in recent years, including those from Elmer Gantry, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Inside Daisy Clover, and Dead Ringer.

Jazz recordings

Previn made dozens of jazz recordings as both a leader and sideman, primarily during two periods of his career: from 1945 to 1967, and then again from 1989 to 2001, with just a handful of recordings in between and afterward (while he focused his career on conducting/recording classical music, and later on composing contemporary art music). Previn also did several crossover recordings with classical singers like Eileen Farrell, Leontyne Price or Kiri Te Kanawa, too, as well as several Easy-Listening records with piano and orchestra in the 1960s (beginning with Like Young. Secret Songs for Young Lovers, 1959. with David Rose and His Orchestra).

Like Oscar Peterson, whom Previn admired a great deal,[3] and Bill Evans, Previn worked a lot as a trio pianist (usually with bass and drums). Following his performance on Shelly Manne's recording Modern Jazz Performances of Songs from My Fair Lady in 1956, Previn released several albums of jazz interpretations of songs from broadway musicals as well as several solo piano recordings focussed on the songbooks of popular composers (André Previn Plays Songs by Vernon Duke, 1958; André Previn Plays Songs by Harold Arlen, 1960; Ballads. Solo Jazz Standards, 1996; Alone: Ballads for Solo Piano, 2007), the late recording of songs by Harold Arlen with singer Sylvia McNair and bass player David Finck (Come Rain or Shine. The Harold Arlen Songbook, 1996), and his TV shows with Oscar Peterson (1974) which Marlon Brando simply called "one of the greatest hours I ever saw on television"[4] and Ella Fitzgerald (1979)[5] respectively.

Jazz critic and historian Ted Gioia wrote in his book about West Coast jazz, the scene to which Previn belonged:

[His] projects varied greatly in terms of quality and jazz content, but at his best Previn could be a persuasive, moving jazz musician. [...] Despite his deep roots in symphonic music, Previn largely steered clear of Third Stream classicism in his jazz work, aiming more at an earthy, hard-swinging piano style at times reminiscent of Horace Silver. Long before his eventual retreat from his jazz work, Previn had become something of a popularizer of jazz rather than a serious practitioner of the music. At his best, however, his music reflected a strong indigenous feel for the jazz idiom.[6]

Dizzy Gillespie stated,

He has the flow, you know, which a lot of guys don't have and won't ever get. Yeah. I heard him play and I knew. A lot of guys, they have the technique, the harmonic sense. They've got the perfect coordination. And, yeah, all that's necessary. But you need something more, you know? Even if you only make an oooooooo, like that, you got to have the flow.[7]

Jazz recordings as leader/co-leader

Jazz recordings as sideman/group member

With Buddy Bregman

With Benny Carter

With Michael Feinstein

With Helen Humes

With Barney Kessel

With Shelly Manne

With The Mitchells: Red Mitchell, Whitey Mitchell and Blue Mitchell

With Lyle Murphy

With Pete Rugolo

Classical music (as conductor or pianist selection)

Chamber music / solo piano music

As in Jazz, Previn, the classical pianist, worked most of the time as a trio pianist (with violin and cello) in classical chamber music. Accordingly, most of his recordings as pianist are in this genre.

Piano Trio No. 7 in B-flat major op. 97, Johannes Brahms: Piano Trio in B major op. 8 (1995, with Viktoria Mullova and Heinrich Schiff)

Orchestral music / concertos / ballets

Previn's recording repertoire as a conductor is focused on the standards of classical and romantic music, excepting opera in general, favoring the symphonic music of Hector Berlioz, Johannes Brahms and Richard Strauss and with a special emphasis on violin and piano concertos and ballets. Just a few of Previn's recordings deal with music before Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (both favourites of Previn's programmes) or contemporary avant-garde art music based on atonality, minimalism, serialism, stochastic music etc. Instead, in 20th-century music Previn's repertoire highlights specific composers of late romanticism and modernism like Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, George Gershwin, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, Dmitri Shostakovich, Richard Strauss, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Harold Shapero and William Walton.

Previn recorded mostly for EMI, Telarc and Deutsche Grammophon.

Contemporary classical music (recordings of Previn's own compositions selection)

Notes and References

  1. News: Moss. Stephen. Baton charged . . June 6, 2005 . September 6, 2009 . London . https://web.archive.org/web/20131203134828/http://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/jun/06/classicalmusicandopera2 . December 3, 2013 . live . mdy-all .
  2. News: Koseluk. Chris. Andre Previn, Master of Many Musical Genres, Dies at 89. The Hollywood Reporter. February 28, 2019. February 28, 2019.
  3. Frédéric Döhl: André Previn. Musikalische Vielseitigkeit und ästhetische Erfahrung, Stuttgart 2012, p. 127.
  4. As quoted in Frédéric Döhl: André Previn. Musikalische Vielseitigkeit und ästhetische Erfahrung, Stuttgart 2012, p. 16.
  5. Web site: Ella Fitzgerald in concert 1979 last part (6) . YouTube . 2009-01-16 . 2013-06-24 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160805224056/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aTDor4iTos . August 5, 2016 . live . mdy-all .
  6. Ted Gioia, West Coast Jazz. Modern Jazz in California, 1945–1960, Berkeley 1998, p. 278 as quoted in Frédéric Döhl: André Previn. Musikalische Vielseitigkeit und ästhetische Erfahrung, Stuttgart 2012, p. 140.
  7. Martin Bookspan/Ross Yockey, André Previn. A Biography, London 1981, S. 124 as quoted in Frédéric Döhl: André Previn. Musikalische Vielseitigkeit und ästhetische Erfahrung, Stuttgart 2012, pp. 139–140.
  8. Web site: Shorty Rogers / André Previn - Collaboration. Discogs. en. 2019-02-28.
  9. Web site: Double Play! - André Previn, Russ Freeman Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  10. Reviews and Ratings of New Jazz Albums . 30 June 2020. 31 March 1958 . . 24 .
  11. Web site: Pal Joey - André Previn Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  12. Web site: Gigi - André Previn & His Pals Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  13. Web site: King Size! - André Previn's Trio Jazz Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  14. Web site: Duet - Doris Day, André Previn Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  15. Web site: Andre Previn and J.J. Johnson Play "Mack the Knife" - J.J. Johnson User Reviews. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  16. Web site: All Alone - André Previn Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  17. Web site: Different Kind of Blues - Itzhak Perlman, André Previn Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  18. Web site: After Hours - André Previn Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  19. Web site: What Headphones? - André Previn Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  20. Web site: Sylvia McNair, André Previn, David Finck - Sure Thing: The Jerome Kern Songbook. Discogs. en. 2019-02-28.
  21. Web site: Play Showboat - André Previn Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  22. Web site: Ballads - André Previn Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  23. Web site: Sylvia McNair, André Previn - Come Rain Or Come Shine: The Harold Arlen Songbook. Discogs. en. 2019-02-28.
  24. Web site: Jazz at the Musikverein - André Previn Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  25. Web site: We Got Rhythm: Gershwin Songbook - André Previn Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  26. Web site: We Got It Good...And That Ain't Bad - An Ellington Songbook. DuncanDruce. 2013-01-09. www.gramophone.co.uk. en. 2019-02-28.
  27. Web site: Live at the Jazz Standard - David Finck, André Previn Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  28. Web site: Andre Previn: Alone. Siders. Harvey. JazzTimes. en-US. 2019-02-28.
  29. Web site: Swinging Kicks - Buddy Bregman Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  30. Web site: Jazz Giant - Benny Carter Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  31. Web site: Music to Listen to Barney Kessel By - Barney Kessel Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  32. Web site: Modern Jazz Performances from Bizet's Carmen - Barney Kessel Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  33. Web site: Shelly Manne & His Friends, Vol. 1 - Shelly Manne, Shelly Manne & His Men Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  34. Web site: Modern Jazz Performances of Songs from My Fair Lady - Shelly Manne & His Friends, Shelly Manne Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  35. Web site: Shelley Manne and his Friends: Modern Jazz Performances of Songs From Li'l Abner. All About Jazz. en. 2019-02-28.
  36. Web site: Bells Are Ringing - Shelly Manne Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  37. Web site: Whitey Mitchell Leader Entry. jazzdiscography.com. 2019-02-28.
  38. Web site: Reeds - Pete Rugolo Songs, Reviews, Credits. AllMusic. en-us. 2019-02-28.
  39. News: Theatre review: Every Good Boy Deserves Favour / Olivier, London. Billington. Michael. 2009-01-19. The Guardian. 2019-02-28. en-GB. 0261-3077.
  40. News: A Streetcar Named Desire, Barbican, London. Clements. Andrew. 2003-06-27. The Guardian. 2019-02-28. en-GB. 0261-3077.
  41. Web site: Review: André Previn's 'Brief Encounter' premieres in Houston. 2009-05-03. LA Times Blogs - Culture Monster. en-US. 2019-02-28.

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