Andre Previn Quotes

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Andre Previn

Profession : Musician

Birth : April 6, 1929

There's a small group of music critics in the States who will forgive you anything - jazz, a long prison term, or what have you - anything but scoring a Hollywood musical.

Andre Previn

I found that jazz musicians, possibly more than their classical counterparts, wear long-standing friendships easily and gracefully.

Andre Previn

When I composed, I heard my music played by the orchestra within days of completion of the score. No master at a conservatory, no matter how revered, can teach as much by verbal criticism as can a cold and analytical hearing of one's own music being played.

Andre Previn

I have a great many shortcomings, but writing for something on time has never bothered me.

Andre Previn

When you're working with music that is invariably better than you are, it's difficult to become swell-headed.

Andre Previn

It's been thrown up to me most of my life: Why don't I just concentrate on conducting or composing or my own playing or on jazz?

Andre Previn

I admire Elliott Carter endlessly. But I have no ambitions to emulate him.

Andre Previn

I used to set myself little challenges to make the work more interesting.

Andre Previn

The thing is that I'm naturally curious about a lot of different disciplines in music, and I enjoy doing them. And as long as people are nice enough to let me, I'll keep on trying.

Andre Previn

I don't write things that are wildly abstractly atonal.

Andre Previn

A Beethoven symphony should be rehearsed like chamber music, only for a lot more people.

Andre Previn

I stuck around in Hollywood for too long. I was there a long time, and when I left, I was smart enough to realise that what I was leaving was not just the movie business. I wanted to get rid of the whole atmosphere.

Andre Previn

John Williams is, without question, talented. He writes very good scores and very good melodies and all that.

Andre Previn

I've had the healthy and sobering experience of constantly working with music that is invariably better than any performance of it can be.

Andre Previn

I don't ever consciously change gears when I play jazz or classical. It's all music.

Andre Previn

I finally wasn't interested in writing music that played while actors talked.

Andre Previn

I run around so much that I finally reasoned that composing is the one musical endeavour which you can do anywhere, anytime.

Andre Previn

Music critics have made it quite clear that any composer who ever contributed a four-bar jingle to a film was to be referred to as a 'Hollywood composer' from then on, even if the rest of his output were to consist solely of liturgical organ sonatas.

Andre Previn

I don't even have a cell phone. I don't know how they work.

Andre Previn

Elliott Carter does not write the kind of music that the kids go off to school whistling.

Andre Previn