Previn's Violin Concerto

Composers Datebook

Synopsis

On today’s date in 2002, a new violin concerto received its premiere by the Boston Symphony and German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, with the new work’s composer, Andre Previn conducting. Previn was born in Berlin, came to the United States in 1939, and became an American citizen in 1943.

His concerto reflects a homecoming of sorts in its third movement, “From a Train in Germany.” In 1999, while riding on a German train, Previn had telephoned a birthday greeting to his manager, who suggested that the new composition he was planning for Boston might reflect that return to the country of his birth. And so its third movement ended up incorporating a German children’s song suggested by Anne-Sophie Mutter, one Previn had known as a child.

Autobiographical inferences throughout the concerto are also suggested by an inscription from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, which reads: “We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/will be to arrive where we started/and know the place for the first time.” And, as if to underscore the autobiographical interplay of life and art, Mutter and Previn were married on August 1, 2002, five months after the premiere of “their” Concerto.

Music Played in Today's Program

André Previn (1930-2019): Violin Concerto; Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin; Boston Symphony; André Previn, conductor; DG 474500