Previn at 80 at Carnegie Hall - Piano Trio Premiere & Postscript

Andre Previn is celebrating his 80th birthday year with some appearances at Carnegie Hall.  Tonight it was with his ex-wife, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, and cellist Lynn Harrell, for the world premiere of Previn's Piano Trio, which was co-commissioned by Mutter and Carnegie Hall.  This was last on the program.  First came Mozart's Piano Trio K. 502, then a performance of the cadenza from Previn's 2007 Double Concerto for Violin and Double Bass (with Roman Patkolo, a young Slovakian double bass virtuoso for whom the concerto was written), and then the Mendelssohn Piano Trio No. 1. 

Previn at 80 is still reasonably agile at the keyboard, but I think lacks the strength to play a concert grand in Carnegie Hall.  I had the feeling of him skimming over the keys, and the left hand a weak companion to the right.  This undermined the Mozart, and I had the sense that Mutter and Harrell were compensating for the lack of strength and depth in Previn's playing by cutting back on their dynamics.  The result was very fleet, fast-paced Mozart, with a bit of lurching and lack of depth.  I had the feeling Previn was out to prove he could play this up to tempo, but nuance was sacrificed.

The cadenza from the concerto was fun - Mutter and Patkolo collaborated well, and it was interesting to hear the effect of a lone double bass on that stage.  The music was fun, too....

The Mendelssohn trio duplicates a recent DG release of a live performance of the trio from Europe a short time ago.  Again Previn's pianism was lacking in strength but not too much in agility.  Indeed -- interesting phenomenon -- he seemed to me to be gaining in strength as the evening wore on.  When the trio walked out at the beginning for the Mozart, Previn seemed to be slowly shuffling across the stage.  When they emerged after the Mendelssohn for the premiere of Previn's trio, he was moving rather swiftly, although he then took great effort to sit down at the keyboard.  I think it is marvelous that he retains the agility and mental/musical acuity to play so well at 80, but I don't think it was the greatest judgment to put this concert in the large auditorium as opposed to Zankel, where his strength deficit would not have been such a problem and he could have relaxed more at the keyboard.

As to the trio - It sounded to me like Previn was immersed in Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and came up with some wierd cross between the two, injecting his own Americanisms along the way.  At times the first movement struck me as a bit disjointed, the second quite lovely and lyrical, the third lost my attention rather quickly.  This is neo-romantic stuff most of the time, avoiding harsh dissonance, striving for melody without achieving memorability.  I'm not sure Previn has much to say in this trio, but he says it with immaculate technique. 

I've had varying reactions to Previn's work over the years.  One of my very favorite recordings is his first recording of the Walton Symphony No. 1 with the LSO on an RCA disc from the 1960s, which has been reissued more than once on CD and is absolutely indispensable.  I also remember fondly his early LSO cycle of the Vaughan Williams symphonies for RCA, and the Rachmaninoff symphonies with the LSO for EMI, as well as wonderful recordings of other Rachmaninoff orchestral music and concerti (with Ashkenazy).  His set of the Prokofiev concerti with Ashkenazy was also something special.  In concert, I was thrilled by several things over the years.  I heard him conduct the LSO on tour in Boston back in the 1970s in a spectacular performance of the Vaughan Williams "A London Symphony" and a Mozart piano concerto that he conducted from the keyboard.  And I heard him conduct the BSO in a thrilling account of the Korngold Symphony during, I believe, the 1980s.  His more recent conducting with the NY Philharmonic has pleased me less - I've found the rhythms tend to go slack and sharp edges a bit too rounded off for my taste.  But there's no doubt he is one of the great musicians of our time, and it is a privilege to share his 80th birthday celebrations at Carnegie Hall.

This postscript is added on Monday, April 27.  Yesterday afternoon I was at Carnegie again for the final subscription concert of the Orchestra of St. Luke's, which was entirely devoted to the Previn at 80 celebration, with the composer at the keyboard for a piece for soprano, flute and piano featuring Renee Fleming, and three orchestral works with Previn on the podium.  There was a new concerto for violin, viola and orchestra, with Anne-Sophie Mutter and Yuri Bashmet as soloists, two arias sung by Fleming from Previn's opera "A Streetcar Named Desire," and finally the violin concert with Mutter, which has been recorded commercially by these artists with a different orchestra.  Previn looked a bit more feeble than Wednesday night - especially in his laborious mounting and descending from the podium and conducting sitting down - but the conducting itself had exemplary sweep and control.  All of the music on this program struck me as more interesting than the trio that was premiered on Wednesday night.  But it is decidedly conductor's music -- that is, the influences fly fast and heavy all over the place.  The violin concerto starts off sounding like a cousin of the Korngold concerto, then morphs through stages of sounding like Prokofiev and Shostakovich and Britten --- it seems that every major 20th century composer of stature has left a mark on Previn, he's absorbed it all, and then tosses it back out in gorgeously orchestrated works.  I think the two string concerti would be worth exploring for any virtuoso seeking a vehicle, and the double concerto in particular deserves to get performances.  (I'm not so convinced by the violin concerto.  The first movement is the most interesting, the second goes on too long, and the third peters out a la the Britten concerto.  The extended song with flute solo, "The Giraffes got to Hamburg," seems more interesting for its text than for its music.  But the two arias from the opera were strikingly good.  I bought the recording from the San Francisco premiere but have yet to listen.  Having heard these two arias will prompt me to grab it off the shelf when I can find a big enough block of time to do it justice, which is always a problem with opera recordings in my busy life.)

Comments

[Joe]

I also attended the concert, and I agree with many of your comments. The concluding Previn trio didn't strike me as very interesting or memorable, but I did enjoy the cadenza. As far as the venue goes, I suspect that the management opted for Stern over Zankel because they thought they could fill the space (which they seemed largely to do, though I noticed a fair number of empty seats at parquet level and wondered how full the balcony was).

Listening to Previn play and reflecting on his age made me think of a couple of other recent concert experiences - hearing Leon Fleisher play with the London Philharmonic in February and Pierre Boulez conducting the Chicago Symphony last month. I may be drawing an unfair contrast, but it appears to me that artists in their eighties have an easier time staying vigorous and vital on the podium than they do as soloists. I wish I had the time to witness Previn's conducting this coming Sunday so that I could compare it with his performance last night.

[Art Leonard]

You're probably correct about the venue choice. I was sitting in my favorite Row A center in the Balcony, and there were plenty of empty seats upstairs. I think Mutter is more of a draw than Previn, but I can think of few living violinists who could actually fill Carnegie - maybe Perlman in a very standard repertory program? I went to a Joshua Bell recital last fall which had empty seats....

As to the aging issue - some pianists continued to play strongly into their 80s - I'm thinking of Rudolf Serkin, for example, and Artur Rubinstein, and of course Horszowski and Wild into their 90s and beyond. But longevity in conductors is more frequent, and there has been speculation that this is because the very act of conducting is an aerobic workout, so conductors are likely to end up more fit physically to an advanced age. In addition, of course, nothing the conductor does physically has any relation to whether the orchestra is in or out of tune, but string players usually lose their ability to play in tune as the natural loss of hearing with age comes along... which is not a problem for pianists, obviously! With pianists, it is finger and wrist strength, I think, that takes the toll.

Leopold Stokowski, Adrian Boult, Sergiu Celibadache... even von Karajan all produced orchestral miracles at a very advanced age because minimal gestures and charismatic control over the orchestra can replace much of the physical effort in old age.