Anne-Sophie Mutter is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of modern times, combining technical virtuosity, beauty of tone, and exceptional charisma. She has nurtured the classical music scene through her own Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, which has commissioned new works and fostered the careers of younger violinists.

Mutter was born in the West German town of Rheinfelden, near the Swiss border, on June 29, 1963. She took up the piano at five and the violin shortly after. By nine, she was advancing rapidly and had begun lessons with Aïda Stucki. Mutter appeared in recital at the Lucerne Festival when she was 13 and was heard there by legendary conductor Herbert von Karajan. He became a key backer, inviting her to make her orchestral debut with the Berlin Philharmonic at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival in 1977 and to collaborate with him on her 1978 debut recording, an album of Mozart violin concertos. Their collaboration became a lasting one as they recorded many of the major 19th century violin concertos together for Deutsche Grammophon. In the 1980s, Mutter made her debut appearances in major musical capitals, including Washington and New York (1980), Tokyo (1981), and Moscow (1985), and by the late '80s, she was a superstar violinist. She was appointed International Chair in Violin Studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1986 and the following year founded the Rudolf Eberle Trust to support the development of gifted young string players throughout Europe. After several mergers with other groups, this became the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation in 2008.

Mutter married Detlef Wunderlich in 1989; the couple had two children, but the marriage ended with Wunderlich's death in 1995. Her 1999 recording of the Vivaldi Four Seasons violin concertos with the Trondheim Soloists was dedicated to his memory. Mutter married conductor and pianist André Previn in 2002. Although this marriage ended in divorce in 2006, the couple remained friends and collaborators; Previn's Violin Concerto "Anne-Sophie," Violin Concerto No. 2, and Violin Sonata No. 2 are among Mutter's many world premieres, which also include works by Wolfgang Rihm, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Henri Dutilleux.

Mutter announced her retirement in 2008 at the age of 45, but she later said the announcement had been misinterpreted, and indeed in the 2010s, she was exceptionally active as a recording and concert artist. Mutter made pioneering appearances at electronic music clubs at Berlin's Asphalt in 2013 and Neue Heimat in 2015; these were recorded and released in Deutsche Grammophon's new Yellow Lounge series. Her appearances late in the decade included a performance at the BBC Proms in the 2017-2018 season and a recital tour honoring the 85th birthday of Penderecki. She has remained associated with Deutsche Grammophon, where a compilation of her Penderecki recordings appeared in 2018. The Tokyo Gala Concert, a live appearance at Tokyo's Suntory Hall with conductor Seiji Ozawa leading the Saito Kinen Orchestra, followed in 2019.

Among Mutter's many honors are four Grammy Awards. She also earned the 2011 Erich-Fromm-Preis for the advancement of humanism through social engagement. Mutter has often lent her talents in support of charitable causes, including making appearances to benefit victims of the 2011 tsunami in Japan. She is the holder of the Merit Cross 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany, and she is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2020, Mutter joined cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Daniel Barenboim for an all-star recording of Beethoven's Triple Concerto, Op. 56, on Deutsche Grammophon. She returned in 2022 with a recording on that label of John Williams' Violin Concerto No. 2. ~ James Manheim

Internationally known for his romantic music and his melodic gifts, Peter Tchaikovsky is sometimes regarded as the greatest Russian composer. His most noted works include Nutcracker Suite, Swan Lake and Symphony No. 4. Most of his compositions center around opera and theater.

Peter Tchaikovsky was born at Votkinsk to an inspector of mines and a half-French mother. As a child, Tchaikovsky was regarded as sensitive and as having morbid tendencies. (His morbid behavior only augmented after his mother died in 1854.) In 1852, he entered the School of Jurisprudence and became a clerk in the Ministry of Justice.

His musical career began at the age of 14 when he wrote his first composition. About 10 years later, Tchaikovsky studied harmony with Nikolay Zaremba, and in 1862, he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory and dedicated all his time to music. During his enrollment at the Conservatory, he studied orchestration with Anton Rubinstein and composed several overtures including one for the popular Alexander Ostrovsky's Storm. After studying at the Conservatory for four years, Tchaikovsky left to become a professor of harmony at a Conservatory in Moscow.

At the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky produced his first symphony, Winter Daydreams, and his first opera, The Voyevoda. Romeo and Juliet, one of Peter Tchaikovsky's most popular operas was at first a failure and did not achieve success until after several revisions were made in 1870 and 1880. During the 1870s Peter Tchaikovsky's musical genius began to shine. He produced his Second and Third Symphony, three string quartets, the Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, the Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra and two more operas, The Oprichnik and Vakula the Smith.

In 1877, Tchaikovsky befriended a wealthy widow who adored his music and supported him financially, but never wanted to meet him. With her financial support (which ceased in 1890), he quit his job at the Conservatory and devoted all his time to his compositions. Also in 1877, however, his personal life took a dramatic turn. His homosexuality causing him feelings of guilt, he decided to marry a 28-year-old former student of the Conservatory just to quiet rumors. While married Tchaikovsky attempted suicide, and the marriage ended when Tchaikovsky fled to St. Petersburg. (His wife died in 1917, after spending more than 20 years in an insane asylum.)

Between 1877 and 1890, Tchaikovsky devoted his time to composing all varieties of music including concertos, symphonies and operas. He produced three operas, The Maid of Orleans, Mazeppa and The Sorceress, as well as the Violin Concerto in D Major, the Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major and the Piano Trio in memory of Nicholas Rubenstein. Besides composing and adding to his many compositions, Tchaikovsky began touring as a conductor in 1888, with tours to Leipzig, Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Paris and London. He orchestrated one of his most popular ballets, Sleeping Beauty, in 1889 and The Queen of Spades in 1890.

In 1891 Tchaikovsky made his first and last trip to the United States, performing in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Realizing that he was more famous in Russia, he returned there to work on the ballad Voyevoda, the opera Iolanta and the famous ballet Nutcracker. He began composing his Sixth Symphony in B minor in early 1893. After a brief interruption to accept an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge, Tchaikovsky finished the Sixth Symphony in August and debuted in mid-October. After moderate success, he thought of renaming the symphony 'Pathetique.' Coincidentally, five days after the performance he became ill with cholera and died on November sixth in St. Petersburg.

Prime examples of wonderful and enlightening compositions, Peter Tchaikovsky's work became internationally famous because of its style and genius. He will always be regarded as one of the great composers. ~ Kim Summers

Since its inception in 1842, the Wiener Philharmoniker (or Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in English) has represented the best in the Central European orchestral tradition. Before the Wiener Philharmoniker was founded, there was no permanent, professional orchestra to be found outside the opera halls in the city of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. The Wiener Philharmoniker is one of the most traditional orchestras in the world today, with much-beloved traditions, like the annual New Year's concerts of waltzes by the Strauss family.

In 1833, Franz Lachner, conductor at the Hofoper, had formed a musicians' association from the ranks of the opera orchestras to play symphonic music, but this was a temporary endeavor. Nine years later, a group of music critics and other interested parties persuaded Otto Nicolai, principal conductor of the Kärntertortheater, to conduct the first Wiener Philharmoniker concert at the Grosser Redoutensaal (Great Ballroom) on March 28, 1842. The group was founded as the first completely self-governing orchestra, and it has remained so ever since. Although concerts were irregular until 1860, the orchestra quickly built up a reputation. From 1860 to 1875, Otto Dessoff was the permanent conductor, bringing the music of Brahms, Wagner, and Liszt into the concert halls. Hans Richter succeeded Dessoff and conducted the orchestra until 1898, introducing Bruckner and Dvorák to Viennese audiences. Both of these conductors played major roles in establishing the Wiener Philharmoniker as one of the finest orchestras in the world. During this time, the Wiener Philharmoniker had numerous premieres of now-classic works such as Brahms' Second Symphony and Bruckner's Eighth; sometimes, as in the case of Bruckner's Third, the premiere was conducted by the composer himself. The great Gustav Mahler conducted from 1898 to 1901, but his tenure was marked by dissension within the orchestra.

The longest-term conductor of the post-Mahler era was Felix Weingartner, from 1908 to 1927. He was beloved by the orchestra for his measured, classical style and, in particular, for his Beethoven interpretations. From 1933 to 1938, the revered conductors Bruno Walter and Wilhelm Furtwängler shared the subscription concerts; after Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938, the Nazi Party dissolved the orchestra, but the decision was reversed after Furtwängler intervened. The Wiener Philharmoniker led an uneasy life during the war but afterward reclaimed its place in the world's orchestral pantheon. The list of conductors who have led Wiener Philharmoniker subscription concerts reads like an honor roll of maestros; Richard Strauss, Arturo Toscanini, Herbert von Karajan, and Leonard Bernstein have each taken turns at the podium.

The Wiener Philharmoniker has held an annual New Year's Day Concert of Strauss family works, particularly those of Johann II, since 1941 when Clemens Krauss began the tradition; the first of these concerts was actually held on New Year's Eve in 1939, after which the concert has occurred on New Year's Day. Riccardo Muti led the orchestra in its 80th New Year's concert in 2021, marking his sixth appearance in the series. While some of its traditions are revered, others have come under fire in recent years. Though the Wiener Philharmoniker premiered a lot of music in its early days, it now prefers to play mostly music written before 1900, which created a controversy at the Salzburg Festival during the 1990s. The orchestra also refused until 1997 to accept a female musician as a full member, threatening to disband rather than cave in to political pressure. The first woman member of the Wiener Philharmoniker was harpist Anna Lelkes, who was granted full membership after 26 years of service. Simone Young was the first woman to conduct the Wiener Philharmoniker in 2005, and in 2008, Albena Danailova became the orchestra's first female concertmaster. Historically, the Wiener Philharmoniker has opposed hiring musicians who are not Central European in order to preserve what is perceived as a unique quality of sound. While the orchestra's policies may be controversial, it cannot be disputed that the Wiener Philharmoniker is one of the world's finest orchestras, performing with exceptional finesse and clarity, with a beautifully blended woodwind and brass sound that meshes perfectly with its subtle, lush strings.

The Wiener Philharmoniker is celebrated on 24-carat gold bullion coins issued by the Austrian Mint. In 2006, the design of the coinage was featured by Austrian Airlines on its airplanes to promote both the orchestra and the sale of the coins, which are among the most popular with investors. ~ Andrew Lindemann Malone

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was, twice over and in two separate areas, one of the most renowned musical figures of the 20th century. Beginning at age seven, he was a celebrated performing prodigy, with a level of technical development and an understanding of music that awed such giants of the musical world as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, who delighted in his prodigious talent. Greeted in such circles as a new Mozart, from his teens until his thirties Korngold was the author of a series of compositions -- orchestral works, operas (most notably Die Tote Stadt), and chamber works -- that were uniquely popular and among the most critically acclaimed of their era. And from 1935 until long past his retirement from the field in 1946, he was also one of Hollywood's most celebrated film composers, responsible for the music to such films as Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, Anthony Adverse, Kings Row, Between Two Worlds, The Sea Wolf, Escape Me Never, and The Constant Nymph.

Korngold was the son of Julius Korngold, one of the most powerful music critics in Vienna during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A prodigious musical talent from the first years of his life, when he was five years old, the younger Korngold -- whose middle name was his father's tribute to Mozart -- was proficient at the piano, and was playing duets with his father at age seven. He'd already begun improvising music at the piano for scenes from imaginary stories, and when he was ten, Korngold played an excerpt from an original cantata entitled Gold for Gustav Mahler, then the most important conductor in Vienna. Mahler recognized that it was pointless to send the boy to an ordinary music conservatory -- he already had a deeper understanding of music than most of the teachers he would encounter -- and instead arranged for Korngold to study with the composer Alexander Zemlinsky, who later orchestrated Korngold's ballet The Snowman. When Korngold was 13 years old, this work received a command performance before the Emperor Franz Josef at the Vienna Court Opera. The Snowman was an immediate success, and was performed on the stages of 40 different opera houses over the next several years.

Korngold's fame was assured, and over the next few years Mahler's testimony to Korngold's prodigious talent was followed by others. Richard Strauss, pondering the early works of Korngold, was heard to remark, "One shudders with awe to realize these compositions were written by a boy." Giacomo Puccini, after attending performances of two Korngold operas, commented, "The boy has so much talent he could easily give us some and still have enough left for himself."

Even early in his career, however, Korngold's work displayed characteristics that anticipated the problems that he would encounter later in life. His music was unabashedly Romantic, filled with achingly lyrical melodies that were easy to remember and almost invited humming, repetition, and imitation. Even at this point in his career, Korngold seemed a throwback to a late 19th century sensibility that -- in the eyes of many in the musical world -- was dying along with the empires of that century. His music was defiantly tonal and melodic, while figures such as Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern were leading the charge into the new century by specifically rejecting tonality, and melody along with it. Korngold's work, with their big tunes, bold melodic statements, and outsized orchestrations that were not only easy on the ear but self-consciously beautiful, all of these attributes an affront to the supporters of the modernists.

Korngold was oblivious to the criticisms, and went on writing music his own way, supported by such renowned musicians as Bruno Walter, Arthur Nikisch, Felix Weingartner, and Arthur Schnabel, who eagerly performed his music. In 1920, Korngold achieved his greatest success on the operatic stage with Die Tote Stadt ("The Dead City"), which was an instant critical and popular success in Germany, and became the first German opera to be produced by the Metropolitan Opera in New York following the end of World War I.

Korngold was -- not surprisingly -- a big fan of the music of Johann Strauss, and during the '20s he set about revising the text and score of Strauss' failed operetta, A Night in Venice, a notorious disaster in its time as a result of Strauss' poor choice of a libretto. Korngold's edition revived the work, and gave it a new life in the 20th century. His is the version that has been handed down to us, and that is performed today. Additionally, Korngold assembled a series of lesser-known Strauss pieces in collaboration with producer Max Reinhardt into a program entitled Waltzes in Vienna, which was widely performed in Europe and eventually came to America under the title The Great Waltz, the name under which it was filmed at MGM in 1938.

Korngold first came to Hollywood in collaboration with Reinhardt, to supervise the scoring of the latter's film adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1934) at Warner Bros. The studio's first attempt at a big-budget "art" film was a financial failure (as was all filmed Shakespeare until Olivier's Henry V ), but Korngold's adaptation of Felix Mendelssohn's incidental music was well received by audiences and executives at Warner Bros.

Korngold seemed a "natural" for movie work. His own music was steeped in the late-19th century Romantic era, expressing the lyricism of Johann Strauss, the depth of Mahler, and the eloquence of Richard Strauss, all attributes that the Hollywood studios were looking for. Indeed, Hollywood had been "stealing" from these men and the world they came from for several years in its movie scores, and Korngold was the real article, a Viennese who wrote like someone out of the previous century, and who could quickly and effectively adapt and orchestrate others' music as well. Further, Korngold was so well-known and popular at the time, especially in Europe and among the musically sophisticated in America, that his name would add immeasurably to the prestige of the studio that got him. Warner Bros. approached him with an offer of a contract, but he had obligations in Vienna, including the premiere of a new opera, and he turned the studio down.

Central Europe in the mid-'30s, however, was not a comfortable place for many people, especially those of Jewish descent. Because of Korngold's Austrian nationality, Hitler's rise to power in Germany was not an immediate threat, and he merely confined his work to his homeland from 1933 onward. He returned to Hollywood to take advantage of several offers made to him by the studios, and in 1935 he returned to Warner Bros., where his first score was for the 1935 costume action film Captain Blood.

This film, which marked the launch to stardom of a young Tasmanian-born actor named Errol Flynn, became one of the studio's biggest successes of the decade and single-handedly revived the swashbuckler genre for the first time since the days of the silents. Anyone watching it recognized that Korngold's rich, evocative score had more than a little to do with the movie's success, and offers of more work from Warner Bros. followed. He continued to divide his work between Europe and Hollywood, signing a contract with Warner Bros. that gave him the right to refuse any assignment, and to reuse any music he composed for the studio in his own concert pieces, and also to score as few as three films every two years (five a year was more typical at the time for most studio-contracted composers), and working on such films as Anthony Adverse (for which he won an Oscar) and The Prince and the Pauper.

All of this work eventually began to crowd in upon Korngold's serious compositions, and in 1937 he did set about returning to this idiom with his Violin Concerto in D Major. An abortive run-through of the piece with a violinist friend, however, left the composer so dispirited that he abandoned the concerto until 1946, when, at his wife's insistence, he resumed work on it. Curiously, the resulting piece is often cited for its use of thematic material that is already familiar from such movies as The Prince and the Pauper, but as Brendan G. Carroll has suggested in his essay on the concerto, it is just as easy to speculate that the themes originated in the concerto and Korngold salvaged them for use in his film scores once he abandoned the concert piece in 1937.

Korngold was offered The Adventures of Robin Hood but initially turned it down, intending to return to Vienna in the spring of 1938. Just as he was about to do so, however, he received word from his father that Germany had forcibly annexed Austria, and that it was too dangerous for him to return or for the rest of his family to remain there. Korngold agreed to score Robin Hood, and secured the studio's assistance in getting his family out of Vienna and into the United States. He spent the next eight years in Hollywood, writing the music for swashbucklers (Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk), dramas (Kings Row, Escape Me Never), fantasy films (Between Two Worlds), and historical biographies (Juarez, Devotion), among other genres.

Korngold became one of the most respected and well remunerated musicians in Hollywood, and the financial security that he achieved was welcomed in a world as filled with uncertainty as that of the late '30s and early '40s. His isolation from the world of serious music took its toll, however, as he learned when he tried to resume his career in the concert hall after the war.

He found himself even more of an anachronism to the world of serious music in the late '40s than he had been in the late '20s. This might not have been a problem, but for the fact that the war had destroyed much of the audience that he'd had during the '20s and '30s. Additionally, the critics and editorialists in postwar Austria made no secret of their contempt for Korngold having gone to America and, worse yet, sold his talents to Hollywood during the war. His return to Austria in 1949 ended in frustration and failure, his music either ignored or ridiculed.

Korngold's Symphonic Serenade, the most important serious work he'd written in a decade, was premiered by Wilhelm Furtwangler and the Vienna Philharmonic in 1949 in a poorly prepared performance, and was badly received. His Symphony in F-Sharp was completed in 1950, but initially failed to find an audience. After the failure of a new production of his most popular work, Die Tote Stadt, Korngold had to face up to the fact that he had no future in Europe. He returned to Hollywood to a life of enforced semi-retirement, and after years of declining health, died in 1957 at age 60. Ironically enough, in 1959 the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos encountered the Symphony for the first time, and declared his intention of performing it in concert. Alas, Mitropoulos died suddenly in the fall of 1960, and the intended performance was never to be. It took Rudolf Kempe, conducting the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, to rediscover the work in the early '70s, and a recording followed soon after.

It was Korngold's movie music, however, that led to a full-scale revival of interest in his work for the concert hall. The latter was not being played much, but his film music had never faded from the consciousness of moviegoers or older producers and directors, who regarded Korngold -- along with Miklos Rozsa and Max Steiner -- as one of the prime symbols of Hollywood's "Golden Age."

The first re-recording of his classic film scores took place at the end of the '50s under Lionel Newman, conducting the Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra in a series of selections from his most famous movie music. This record didn't sell very well, and later became a much-sought collector's item, but it was a first step, showing the lucky few who knew it what Korngold's music could sound like away from the movie theater, in the hands of a good orchestra. In the early '70s, RCA released a new recording of Korngold film music, played by the London's National Philharmonic Orchestra (essentially a studio agglomeration consisting of members of the London Philharmonic, London Symphony, and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, among others) under the baton of Charles Gerhardt, and produced by Korngold's son George. This record, entitled The Sea Hawk: The Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, spearheaded a full-blown revival of his reputation, at least in the world of movie scholarship.

Suddenly, Korngold's name was recognized by more casual movie buffs and enthusiasts, alongside those of the stars of the films he'd worked on: Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Olivia de Haviland, Joan Fontaine, and Basil Rathbone. Across the decades since the '30s and '40s, the movies that Korngold scored -- Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, Kings Row, Between Two Worlds, The Sea Wolf -- had proved to be some of the most enduring of the century, shown constantly on television and in revival theaters, quoted and referred to in other, more recent films (including Star Wars), sold heavily in home video editions, and later colorized and introduced to an entirely new audience of younger viewers.

Additionally, Korngold had not entirely lost his following among serious musicians. In addition to Kempe's recording of the Symphony, RCA Records also released a complete recording of Die Todt Stadt during the 1975, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf and starring Rene Kollo, Carol Neblett, Herman Prey, and Benjamin Luxon that has proved to be an enduring part of the company's catalog. By the beginning of the '80s, other labels and orchestras were beginning to explore Korngold's work anew, including a second recording of the Symphony, and this became a full-blown revival, at least on record, by the end of the '80s, as conductors and producers turned to Korngold in their search for lost Romantic masterpieces. By the mid-'90s, a new recording of Die Todt Stadt had been released, and Korngold's Symphonic Serenade received its New York Philharmonic debut in 1995. Early 1996, Rhino Records added another key element to the recognition of which Korngold had been cheated by releasing Erich Wolfgang Korngold: The Warner Bros. Years, a collection of the original music tracks that he'd conducted from 1935 through 1946, cleaned up and assembled in chronological order for commercial release on two CDs. ~ Bruce Eder

Founded in 1904 and therefore the oldest of the city's symphony orchestras, the London Symphony Orchestra became world-renowned for recordings that date back to early gramophone records in 1912. Amid decades of diverse classical programming that followed, including performances for radio and TV, the orchestra also became known for its appearances in numerous film scores, including the Star Wars series. The LSO also tours and first visited North America in 1912 (narrowly avoiding passage on the Titanic).

The ensemble's direct antecedent was the Queen's Hall Orchestra, formed in 1895 for conductor Henry Wood's series of Promenade Concerts. The summer series was so successful that a series of weekly Sunday afternoon concerts was established the same year. The orchestra, however, had never become a permanent group; its members could and often did send other musicians to substitute for them at concerts. In 1904, Wood attempted to end this practice, prompting 46 members to leave and form their own orchestra.

The London Symphony Orchestra was organized as a self-governing corporation administered by a board selected by the players. They arranged for the great Hans Richter to conduct the inaugural concert, and continued to engage a variety of conductors, practically introducing the concept of the guest conductor to the London musical scene. Soon, though, the title and post of principal conductor was established for Richter. The LSO's connection with the BBC goes back to 1924 when Ralph Vaughan Williams conducted the orchestra in the premiere broadcast performance of his Pastoral Symphony. It was the unofficial orchestra in residence for the BBC until the formation of the BBC Symphony in 1930 and continued to broadcast concerts and provide background music for many BBC productions. Other conductors most associated with the orchestra's first few decades include Edward Elgar and Thomas Beecham. During World War II, Wood was welcomed for a series of concerts.

The War took its toll on orchestra membership as it had the general populace, and a concurrent drop in private funding led to increased reliance on the state arts council. This eventually led to structural reorganization in the 1950s, resulting in increased professional standards and the abandonment of profit-sharing; players became salaried employees. The revamped orchestra made only its second tour of the United States in 1963 (the first had been in 1912), and in 1964 embarked on its first world tour. In the mid-1960s the city of London broke ground for the Barbican Arts Centre, intended as the LSO's permanent home. The building was an architectural and acoustic success, and since 1982 has provided the orchestra the solid base it lacked during the first 70-plus years of its existence. The venue opened under principal conductor Claudio Abbado, who took over for André Previn in 1979.

In the meantime, the orchestra made its Star Wars debut, performing John Williams' score for the original 1977 film. While the organization had recorded its first film score in 1935 (H.G. Wells' Things to Come) and appeared in such classics as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, and The Sound of Music, Star Wars won three Grammys, an Academy Award, and a BAFTA, among many other accolades, sold over a million copies in the U.S. and over 100,000 in the U.K., and endures as a touchstone in modern film music. The LSO went on to record music for the franchise's entire first two trilogies as well as films like 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1993's Schindler's List, 1997's Titanic, and select installments of the Harry Potter series.

During the tenure of Colin Davis, who was named principal conductor in 1995, the LSO established its own record label, LSO Live. Dvorák's Symphony No. 9, recorded at Barbican Centre in 1999 and released in 2000, bears catalog number 0001. Their 2000 recording of Berlioz's Les Troyens won two Grammys in 2002, and Verdi's Falstaff took home the Best Opera Grammy in 2006. In 2007, Davis took the position of orchestra president, its first since Leonard Bernstein's passing in 1990, and Valery Gergiev became principal conductor.

Also known for crossing over into rock, jazz, and Broadway, among other categories, they followed hit recordings such as Symphonic Rolling Stones and Gershwin Fantasy (with Joshua Bell) with albums like 2017's Someone to Watch Over Me, which had them accompanying archival recordings of Ella Fitzgerald. ~ Marcy Donelson, Joseph Stevenson & Corie Stanton Root

Known as a successful classical conductor, jazz pianist, and composer of jazz, classical, and film music, André Previn frequently bridged the gap between popular and so-called "serious" music, and in doing so broadened the horizons of both. A German-American who fled Nazi Germany with his family in his youth, he went on to win four Academy Awards, all for his work on film musicals in late '50s and '60s, including his adaptation of My Fair Lady (1964). By the '70s, he had established himself as one of the world's leading classical conductors, with terms at the London Symphony Orchestra (1968-1979), Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1976-1984), and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1985-1992). He also served as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1985 to 1989. During his tenure at the LSO, the BBC series André Previn's Music Hour made him household name. All the while, his career-spanning jazz recordings included collaborations with artists such as Benny Carter, Herb Ellis, and Shelly Manne, as well as classical artists including Itzhak Perlman, Leontyne Price, and Kiri Te Kanawa. Winner of ten Grammy Awards, Previn was the recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.

A native of Berlin, Previn's father was an accomplished pianist (though a lawyer by profession) and determined that his son would follow in his musical footsteps. The talented young André received instruction on the piano at the Berlin Hochschule, and also absorbed music in a less formal environment during the many private recitals given in the Previn home. In 1938, the Jewish family fled to France where André continued as a scholarship student at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1939, the Previn family relocated to southern California.

Life was difficult for the family (all their possessions had been left behind in Europe, and Previn's father was qualified only in German law), and though barely ten years old, André supplemented the family income by accompanying films at movie houses and playing in jazz clubs. At 14 he started working at MGM (Charles Previn, André's great uncle, was head of music at Universal Studios), orchestrating and arranging film music, and slowly saved enough money to study composition with Castelnuovo-Tedesco. At 18, André was asked to compose his own full-length film score, 1949's The Sun Comes Up, which resulted in his first experience on the podium in front of a real orchestra.

Previn, who had taken U.S. citizenship in 1943, served in San Francisco during the Korean War, where he had the opportunity to study conducting with Pierre Monteux. Following discharge from the army, Previn left MGM, but continued to compose, conduct, and arrange film music throughout the '50s, winning Academy Awards for his score adaptations of Gigi (1958) and Porgy & Bess (1959). He also recorded and released a series of best-selling jazz albums, something he would continue to do sporadically throughout the decades.

In the early '60s, Previn's film scores included such enduring works as Elmer Gantry (1960) and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962). Shortly before winning his third and fourth Academy Awards for Irma la Douce (1963) and My Fair Lady (1964), Previn found the courage to abandon Hollywood and pursue his dream of becoming a respected conductor. His professional debut occurred in 1963 with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and he spent the next several years traveling around the country conducting various little-known orchestras in an effort to gain exposure and develop his own skill on the podium. His first big break occurred in 1967 when he was asked to succeed Sir John Barbirolli as music director of the Houston Symphony. When offered the job of principal conductor for the London Symphony Orchestra in 1968, Previn left Houston. During his 11 years with the orchestra (1968-1979), a series of BBC television productions entitled André Previn's Music Hour made the LSO (and Previn) a household name around the world. Other conducting appointments included the Pittsburgh Symphony (1976-1984), the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (1985-1989), and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1985-1992).

Previn readily admitted that he was not driven to compose, doing so mostly by request, but he nevertheless composed a generous quantity of concert music, including a piano concerto for Vladimir Ashkenazy and a cello sonata at the request of Yo-Yo Ma. The year 1998 saw the release of his full-length opera A Streetcar Named Desire at the San Francisco Opera. In 2009, Houston Grand Opera presented his Brief Encounter, based on the 1945 film of the same name and its source material, the Noël Coward play Still Life. That year, Previn's diverse career was celebrated with a series of four concerts at Carnegie Hall in honor of his 80th birthday. A year later, he was presented with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Previn passed away at the end of February 2019.~ Blair Johnston & Marcy Donelson