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You're welcome.
Incidentally, FWIW, some of the posts above reflect the feeling I've long held about a composer I very much admire, Aaron Copland. Specifically, whenever I listen to his 3rd Symphony, I think -- aside from the interpolation of the Fanfare for the Common Man -- comparisons may be odious, but there's nothing in this symphony to match the power and excitement and appeal of the same composer's music for THE RED PONY.
I've mentioned this before, but a composer friend of mine expressed his opinion that Copland allows his heart to bleed in empathy for the characters in, say, OF MICE AND MEN, with a depth of emotional expressivity he's too reticent to explore in his concert works.
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This is absolutely correct and wonderfully salient!! Boulez - who the hell is he and what has he ever done which will leave us flabbergasted by his musical genius? Oh, except say "we should burn down the opera houses". His 'music' is arid and emotionally empty and would suit people who have no real feelings to be reached. Seriously.
Nobody has mentioned the phenomenal jazz pianist that Previn was. I feel it will be this for which he is best remembered. And the Musical Direction job at MGM Freed Unit.
Thanks Preston for posting this interview and thanks to all for those wonderful contributions!
Say what you will about Boulez as a composer (personally, I like his music), but I think it's his work as a writer about music (Leonard Rosenman once quoted him as saying something like: "The kind of thing where people are sitting in an auditorium and listen to a tape piece is like a crematorium," which I thought was a delightful way of summing up the essential nature of the relationship between music, musician, and audience), a personality/philosopher in the world of music, and a conductor that really resonates and will last. His recordings of the works of Alban Berg in particular are wonderfully trenchant, and to my ears anyway, wholly and holistically embrace both the highly intellectual and incredibly emotional nature of Berg's music.
As for Previn, he's still a phenomenal jazz pianist (I believe he played a few jazz gigs in the somewhat recent past, too), but someone else earlier was a bit dismissive of his work as a conductor, which again, I have to refute - not only based on his marvelous work with the MGM musicals ("Gigi," in particular), but also for his versatile touch with an orchestra. His recording of my late friend Harold Shapero's "Symphony for Classical Orchestra" (a wonderful piece for those that don't know it) is really fantastic - the control, intensity, and sensitivity he brings to the performance is not something a lesser talent could have done. His shaping of the music he conducts is always careful, and I think he should be justly praised and remembered for his exceptional work on the podium. (That and his having composed one of the great film songs: "Second Chance.")
The other difference between Previn's film & concert work (and indeed, most other composers who've led that double life - Leonard Bernstein included - as someone above mentioned "On the Waterfront" in an interesting context) is probably that the concert works, existing as purely a priori constructs, might lack an instant or constant "immediacy" in expression and development - with the composers taking more time to reach certain musical ideas that perhaps would have been compressed, or more explicit, or whatever, when "chained" to a film.
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I'll try and reply to a few different things here:
Regie: Don't get me wrong, I really love all of Bernstein's concert works (particularly the "Kaddish" symphony and "Songfest," which I was slated to conduct a few years ago), but I think that people expecting something more overly and immediately dramatic might be puzzled by the time he takes (this is mostly regarding the poster who mentioned a music critic friend of his that talked about how he wished LB's other concert work had the same vital energy of his "On the Waterfront" suite, and an attempt to explain why that might be the case) in developing and explicating his ideas. In a broadcast he did, Leonard Rosenman talked about the influence that writing for film had on his later concert works, and I think he does hit upon some salient truths in what he says, particularly as it relates to writing in the two fields.
To the folks who also mentioned Shapero - the "Symphony for Classical Orchestra" is a really marvelous (and underplayed) piece (the Bernstein recording is great, too), and Previn himself had some very glowing things to hear about it. It is a shame his music isn't performed more, though a few of his chamber pieces were performed in Massachusetts over the last few years, and his works for strings and two pianos (his sonata for four hands is sublime. I remember being at a performance of it - Harold was there, too, and the applause he received for it was wonderful) are available - though they can get a little pricey. His is a really terrific voice, and he was one of those nexus points in 20th Century music (particularly American music) in that he really did know everyone, from Krenek to Bernstein to Slonimsky and Babbitt. He was a very funny man, and his wit really showed in his music - here's hoping we can get some new performances/recordings in the coming years. I thought he would go on forever, too, ToneRow.
And, finally, to bring things back to Previn - can someone please reissue his really charming score for "The Good Companions"? The combination of his effortlessly assembled melodies with Johnny Mercer's delightful lyrics makes for an effervescent listening experience.
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And HIS greatest contribution to Hollywood was to introduce Frank Skinner and Hans J. Salter to each other.
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P.S. --
With regard to GIGI, BELLS ARE RINGING and KISMET, I think it takes nothing away from Previn's accomplishments in this arena to point out that a lot of the credit for the sound of these particular MGM musicals must be shared, at least in part, with men such as Conrad Salinger, Alexander Courage, Robert Franklyn, etc, etc..
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P.P.S. --
Re: Rozsa's "exoticism and dynamism"... Personally, I often find both plentifully supplied in many of his concert pieces, esp. the 3 Hungarian Sketches, and the Theme and Variations, among many others. And I gravitate to them because they strike the same pleasure centers in my brain as his best film scores. But that's just my opinion, FWIW.
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