CLASSICAL

André Previn The Warner Edition: Complete HMV & Teldec Recordings

Warner Classics, out now

André Previn, who died two years ago aged 89, was a top international conductor for half a century, and the nearest thing to a rock star the classical podium has ever produced.

When he was the surprise appointment to head up the London Symphony Orchestra in 1968, Previn took London by storm. Not only did he give sold-out concerts and recordings aplenty (all to be found here), but he also had a prime-time TV series, André Previn’s Music Night, and the ultimate accolade, an appearance on The Morecambe And Wise Show.

Previn was very Hollywood, and not at all fazed on the show by being introduced as ‘Mr Preview’. He tried to teach Eric the piano. ‘You played all the wrong notes,’ he said. ‘I’m playing all the right notes,’ replied Morecambe, ‘but not necessarily in the right order.’ An encounter that has become a legendary piece of TV history.

This 96-CD set contains recordings made between 1971 and 1987. There are Previn’s LSO recordings, made during his principal conductorship (1968-79), and also some he made with the Royal Philharmonic, which he took over in 1985.

Previn’s recordings from the US with the Pittsburgh Symphony, which he ran from 1976, as well as some excellent stuff from Chicago and Philadelphia, make up a superb guide to orchestral standards in the 1970s and 1980s.

This set is particularly strong in Russian repertoire, with two complete Nutcrackers, with the LSO (1972) and the RPO (1986), and an especially celebrated Rachmaninov Second Symphony (1973), a then neglected masterpiece that Previn and the LSO really made their own.

There’s some tougher stuff by Shostakovich and Prokofiev, Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony, and several examples of Previn’s brilliant piano playing, notably a treasurable Scott Joplin album with Itzhak Perlman (arranged, of course, by Previn himself) and a Gershwin album so highly rated that EMI included it in its Great Recordings Of The Century series.

Shopping around, you can get this box for £150 – a snip, as it shows off the young Previn at his most excitingly charismatic.