Previn’s History

If music director Andre Previn’s biggest problem with the Los Angeles Philharmonic was lackluster attendance, then I have to wonder if Philharmonic executive Ernest Fleischmann or the board of directors know anything about conductors or records or compact discs or who’s hot and who’s not.

Any classical record freak knows what kind of conductor Previn is from his long history of his recordings with the London Symphony: He is a laid-back, understated conductor who loves leisurely, thoughtful readings of long works and who has built a whole career conducting Walton and Elgar and Vaughan Williams.

If audiences here want to listen to Schumann’s Fourth Symphony and if they don’t want to hear Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations, then Previn should never have been offered the music director’s position.

From Previn’s cold reception here, it should be obvious that Lorin Maazel and Christoph von Donanyi shouldn’t even be considered to succeed Previn, since they are even more laid-back and more thoughtful than Previn, having been successors to George Szell in Cleveland.

The search for a new conductor in Los Angeles sounds less like the search for a Scarlett O’Hara and more like a group of guys (Fleischmann and the board of directors) who are trying to run a doughnut shop when they don’t know what a doughnut should look like or what a doughnut should taste like, let alone how to market a doughnut.

I wonder if Fleischmann has ever even walked into a record store or if he ever listens to KFAC. If he did then he wouldn’t be faced with such a ridiculous guessing game of who should lead the Philharmonic.

MATTHEW OKADA

Pasadena