André Previn

One of the most prodigiously talented musicians of his time, André Previn crossed musical barriers and embraced genres from jazz and film music to opera and the great symphonic repertoire. Born in Berlin in 1929, he emigrated with his family via Paris to Los Angeles in 1939. His first career was in Hollywood for MGM as an arranger and, later, composer, in which roles he secured Oscars for his work on Gigi (1958), Porgy and Bess (1959), Irma La Douce (1963) and My Fair Lady (1964). He made his "classical" conducting debut in 1963 with the St Louis Symphony, which led to a permanent post in Houston (1967-9) and then his career-changing tenure with the London Symphony Orchestra (1968-79) during which period he recorded extensively and hugely raised his and the orchestra’s profile through numerous TV appearances; it was a relationship that continued until Previn’s death and they recorded together often. He later had chief conductor posts in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, London (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) and Oslo. As a guest conductor, he worked frequently with the Vienna Philharmonic and often recorded with them, his focus tending to be on the music of Richard Strauss. As a composer, apart from his film scores, he was prolific; his catalogue includes 14 concertos, among which were ones for violin (written for his fifth wife, Anne-Sophie Mutter, and which secured him one of his ten Grammy Awards) and piano (for Vladimir Ashkenazy). He often wrote vocal works for favourite singers, including a song-cycle Honey and Rue (1997) for Kathleen Battle and songs for Sylvia McNair, Renée Fleming and Barbara Bonney. He came to opera late, writing A Streetcar Named Desire in 1997 and Brief Encounter in 2007. As a pianist, he performed and recorded often, moving effortlessly between the worlds of classical and jazz; he particularly loved playing chamber music and formed a piano trio with Mutter and the cellist Daniel Müller-Schott. He died in February 2009, aged 89.