Previn Returning as Guest Conductor After Bitter Farewell

The past is present for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. After all the changes of the last six months, it is Andre Previn, the controversial ex-music director, who opens the season tonight at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

The schedule, of course, was set long before Previn’s sudden, bitter resignation in April and his replacement in August by Esa-Pekka Salonen. He cut much of the workload he would have carried as music director, including his two weeks at Hollywood Bowl this summer. But he will still lead the orchestra in seven weeks of concerts this season, including the first three.

Tuesday, Previn faced the Philharmonic for the first time since his last concert on April 30. There was, he reported, no awkwardness to the reunion.

“Musicians aren’t like that,” Previn said. “I felt they were terribly glad to see me. I had a very nice time, and so did the orchestra.”

Orchestra members and other observers also found little hint of tension in the rehearsal--which is more than can be said for the Philharmonic management, which barred reporters from the rehearsal. (Previn, in resigning, stated: “In the current structure of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, it has become obvious to me that there is no room for a music director.”)

“It was a nice rehearsal,” said cellist Gloria Lum. “It felt very normal, very nice and very comfortable. We’re used to him. We know what to expect.”

When Previn entered, musicians reported, they gave him a round of applause. He quipped “What’s new?” and proceeded to rehearse.

“It was an excellent rehearsal,” said violinist Guido Lamell. “I believe it reflects the things he told us when he left us. He said things had gotten in the way of his first priority--to make music. . . . He didn’t say anything like that today.”

The orchestra, Lamell added, was generally in “an upbeat mood. It’s also the first day of school--everybody’s happy on the first day of school.”

The subject matter was Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony. Previn said that, in its subtlety, the work presented a challenge to the orchestra “after 10 weeks of playing outdoors,” a challenge that the musicians accepted.

Lum concurred. “It’s a change for the whole orchestra, just being back inside the Music Center for one thing, after the Bowl all summer. And it’s nice to be thinking of finer points of music again, because at the Bowl you don’t.”

Wednesday, Previn and the players turned to Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony. Previn, in his 3 1/2 years as music director, also opened the previous two seasons with Shostakovich on the program, something of which he seemed unaware.

“Have I really?” he asked, when questioned about this propensity to begin the season with Shostakovich. “I suppose he’s getting to be the great man of the 20th-Century symphony. The Fourth is a great work, and it’s never been done here. It’s certainly not ingratiating--it’s an ice-cold thing, fairly despondent but glorious to perform.”

Previn said that he didn’t think there should necessarily be anything different about a program just because it was the first in the season, other than that it should feature the orchestra alone, without the distraction of outside soloists. The soloists for Previn’s next programs are members of the Philharmonic, concertmaster Sidney Weiss and clarinetist Lorin Levee.

Many of the Philharmonic programs this season feature in-house soloists, and Previn has included several of those in his assignments. “I wanted to make sure I kept most of the weeks with orchestra soloists,” he said. “I wanted the pleasure of working with those colleagues.” Previn will also play piano with orchestra members in a Brahms program opening the Philharmonic Chamber Music Society season at Gindi Auditorium on Oct. 16.

Though the orchestra’s role in, and feelings about, Previn’s departure have been ambiguous, the players reached after the Tuesday rehearsal returned the compliment. Whatever regrets there were about the way the situation developed, all expressed respect for Previn as a musician.

“The circumstances (Tuesday) also reflected a larger truth: Orchestras expect different things from their music director than they do from a guest,” Lamell said. “I think the orchestra is nicer to a guest conductor than to a music director, and we were nicer to Andre today than we were when he was music director.

“It goes both ways. I was reflecting back on his last words to us, when he said various obstacles had arisen, and I think there were obstacles between him and the orchestra also, and those obstacles were gone.”

For his part, Previn is eager to put the acrimony behind him. “I can’t say I don’t regret it happened, but I’ve gone on.”

After his resignation, he went immediately on to a busy summer in Europe. He conducted the Berlin Philharmonic--to which he will return in 1990 and 1991--and the Vienna Philharmonic, with which he is recording a Richard Strauss cycle for Telarc Records.

As principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic, Previn led that orchestra in a Beethoven series in London. With the Royal Philharmonic, he is recording the Beethoven Symphonies, with all completed but Nos. 1 and 3.

Previn is also busy with a television project called “Mozart on Tour.” He is co-writing and narrating--in English and German--13 one-hour programs, each built around a different Mozart piano concerto (with soloists including Alicia de Larrocha, Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia and Previn himself), and shot in a different city.

The production is by Hellthaler International in association with KCET. The PBS station will package seven of the episodes for the United States, tentatively to air locally in June and July of 1991, the bicentennial of Mozart’s death.

From here, Previn goes on to a European tour with the Vienna Philharmonic, which he will also take to Japan in 1991. He returns to Los Angeles for two weeks of concerts in both January and April.

His April repertory is based on music he will be recording then with the Philharmonic, Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. After that, his recording work will be with other orchestras.

“I mean, what would be the point” of recording with the Philharmonic? he asked.

Times Staff Writer Barbara Isenberg contributed to this article. RELATED STORY: Times Music Critic Martin Bernheimer examines the dispute that caused Previn to withdraw as music director in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times Magazine.