Andre Previn Quotes

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

At MGM, you knew you were going to be working next year; you knew you were going to get paid. But I was too ambitious musically to settle for it. And I wanted to gamble with whatever talent I might have had.

- Andre Previn

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

- Andre Previn

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

- Andre Previn

People who don't do jazz think it's black magic. But really, it's just a matter of getting used to it. It's fun to gamble. The trick is not to fall back on the things you've done before.

- Andre Previn

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

- 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

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 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

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

- Andre Previn

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

- Andre Previn

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

- Andre Previn

I'm on very good terms with all my former wives.

- Andre Previn

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

- Andre Previn

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

- Andre Previn

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

- Andre Previn

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

- Andre Previn