An honest appraisal …

… Night thoughts about André Previn | About Last Night. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

It strikes me in retrospect that Previn’s greatest gift may well have been his formidable ability as a popularizer. He talked about music wonderfully well in his TV appearances, and he was an impeccably competent interpreter of pretty much anything at which he tried his hand. For all these reasons, he was probably at his best during his eight-year tenure as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, a good orchestra that he turned into a very good one, simultaneously putting it in the national limelight by hosting Previn and the Pittsburgh on PBS for three deservedly successful years. He was made for that job, and never found another one as well suited to his talents: it says everything about Previn that he seems never to have been seriously considered to run any of the world’s top-tier orchestras, which went elsewhere when looking for new maestros. (The Los Angeles Philharmonic, which he led to famously unhappy effect from 1985 to 1989, did not yet fill that bill.)