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Just stumbled on what I think is a very interesting and extensive 2015 interview with Andre Previn. As you know, he's been involved in many different kinds of music and music-making, and this conversation touches on virtually all of them. If you're interested only in his views on film music and its composers -- particularly John Williams -- you can skip around and skim. But I think you'll be rewarded by examining this in all its different facets.
http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/andre-previn-how-lucky-i-am-now/
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Go for it, Grahame. If you find it, we can consolidate. I, the Luddite Cyberpunk, have rarely had good luck finding things around here, but I wish you luck!
***
Thank you, John. While not knowledgeable enough to have known about that specific violin concerto, I was well aware that JW has penned a whole slew of concertos for various instruments, and of course a big batch of other orchestral concert pieces, so I, too, wondered about Previn's recollections on that matter. (Fake news!  ) Agree with you on your saline solution.
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Thanks, William. I'll go check that out, and then afterward I think I'll enjoy listening to THE PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY, some wonderful music Alfred Newman wrote for Debbie Reynolds talking.
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pp -- really? Bernstein but not Copland? I'm surprised. I think maybe Elmer would have been, too. Me, I love them both. But, so it goes. As I'm fond of quoting Mark Twain on this Board, "It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races."
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I love both Copland and Elmer, and North and Moross, but each have their own distinct Americana style.
Copland definitely set a mould by looking deliberately for an authentic American symphonic style, and he did so by tweaking pentatonic folk styles and using their intervals, plus elements of Hispanic and modern dissonance styles.
But Moross and Bernstein and the others did their own thing, had their own harmonic preferences, their own groupings. Herrmann studied under Copland, but no-one says 'Oh, the Aaron Copland School'.
I think you might as well say Rachmaninov was in the Tchaikovsky school, or Haydn in the Mozart. It doesn't do the composers justice really. If you decide to write a Western score using those folk intervals and a bit of pseudo-Mexican, then it'll almost certainly come out like Mag 7, irrespective of whether you think Copland or not. The Norths and Previns and Goldsmiths took the unresolved bittersweet clashes of some of Copland's music and ran with that. Friedhofer in 'Best Years' evoked Aaron fairly intentionally, but all of these gents were unique. They shouldn't be denigrated.
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Well, that "watered-down" crack is another one of those "grain of salt" remarks from the sometimes hoity-toity Mr. Previn, isn't it? I often think that deep down in his psyche he feels the necessity to denigrate his own and others' work in Hollywood as a pre-emptive attempt to ward off disrespect from the classical music world, a field in which a certain amount of snobbery is not exactly an unknown component. (That'll be 25 cents.)
Bernstein, Copland, Vaughan Williams -- now, that makes it three composers I love. Ditto Friedhofer, Moross, North, etc., etc. Bernstein didn't study with Copland, although the older man helped encourage Elmer's musical education. God knows Bernstein gallops, bless him, but I personally would never feel that Copland's "Hoedown," say, shambles. And one of the most stirring pieces of musical Americana, IMHO, is the overture of the RED PONY suite. (I wish Copland had managed to endow his Symphony with that level of excitement, but that's another discussion for another time.) As it happens, perhaps my favorite recording of the PONY suite is with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by... Andre Previn. Go figure.
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And expressed very well, I'd say, as did lots of other people on that thread. I'm sorry I never knew about the thread -- if I had, you can be sure I would've posted on it -- but I'll be very happy if this thread, as sort of a companion piece, bumps readers back to that original one.
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I'm sure if you take a poll you'll find many Bernstein admirers who remain unimpressed by Copland, who to my ears too often shambles where Bernstein is galloping.
Count me as another Bernstein fan who is relatively unmoved by Copland. Copland is an important composer, and while Bernstein bears some influence of Copland, I find Bernstein's music more satisfying.
It's also worth nothing that Copland, despite his popular status of "Quintessential Americana Composer", divided his time between Manhattan and the comfortable suburbs of New York, whereas Bernstein owned a ranch in Ojai, on which he raised Llamas and often rode his horse in the mountains. Copland wrote about the Americana experience, but Bernstein lived it.
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