Almost Like Bernstein

Mellowness and maturity have come to that jack-of-all-musical-trades, Andre Previn. He is 37 years old, and it is hard to believe that he was about half that age when MGM in 1948 assigned him to compose, score and direct the music for a $3,000,000 Jeanette MacDonald movie. Since then, he has plucked four Oscars for scoring Gigi, Porgy and Bess, Irma La Douce and My Fair Lady. Now Previn is changing, and so is his career. "The boy-wonder thing is over," he mused last week. "I have decided to concentrate on conducting to the exclusion of the Hollywood thing."

Previn has signed to conduct 60 concerts with various U.S. orchestras in the 1966-67 season, eight with the Houston Symphony. In two of the concerts, he will play the piano and conduct from the keyboard. He is also composing his first Broadway musical, Coco, about the life of 83-year-old Parisian Designer Coco Chanel, in which he is collaborating with Alan Jay Lerner. He has contracted with RCA Victor Red Seal to score either two pop or two jazz albums a year, and to do four conducting jobs a year.

Freedom to Fail. Ironically, Previn is drifting away from Hollywood just when he is in greatest demand, and can name his own price and property. Yet he has not made the leap without a net.

With Wife Dory, a former MGM lyricist, he is committed to write an 18-song musical score for Goodbye, Mr. Chips, a movie starring Richard Burton. And he will score two films, The Graduate and Catch-22, directed by his close pal Mike Nichols. Previn figures that he can do all this with half of one hand, while bearing down on stage, podium and recording studio. "Now, at least, I am responsible for my own mistakes," he says. "It's better than all those years when I was going from Lassie to Debbie Reynolds." Of course, between the dogs and Debbies he managed to earn enough cash to give him the new freedom to fail.

He probably doesn't know the meaning of the word. Son of a Berlin piano teacher who immigrated to the U.S. when Andre was nine, he has made a success of all the many keys he touched. Previn studied classical music under Italian Composer-Conductor Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, did considerable moonlighting in Hollywood, "cheating every minute." With a friend, Composer Lukas Foss, he recorded all the four-hand piano music of Mozart. He wrote a symphony and a quantity of piano works and chamber music. He did the arrangements for several bestselling jazz albums. And he fared well as guest conductor of several symphonies.

His idol and guide has been Leonard Bernstein, who showed that the composers and conductors of popular music could emulate the classical artists--and vice versa--without getting laughs. Says Previn: "Bernstein has made it possible not to specialize in one area of music. You no longer have to do just Broadway shows, or movies, or conduct--you can do any or all of them."

Pride & Prejudice. Despite his virtuosity, Previn's reputation in serious music circles was tarnished by his Hollywood glitter. "Wherever I went to conduct," he complains, "it was always 'Hollywood's Andre Previn came here last week and . . .' To have written a Broadway score is O.K., even admirable; having played a lot of jazz is O.K., but less admirable. But somehow, having worked in Hollywood is like being a well-known whore."

Previn won purity when he was invited to conduct the Houston Symphony four years ago. The city, with plenty of fierce pride in its fine orchestra and practically no prejudice against Hollywood, gave him high critical acclaim, has invited him back to conduct every year since then. Now he is the only guest conductor scheduled to lead the Houston Symphony, and nobody will be the least bit surprised if he eventually replaces 66-year-old Conductor Sir John Barbirolli. Previn does not expect that any of this will turn his head, which might be on a swivel by now. Conducting is the only phase of music in which he feels he has yet to prove himself. "I'm not so conceited as to go on conducting if everyone thinks I'm no good," he sighs. "I have to have some kind of encouragement."

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