Search - Andre Previn, Renée Fleming, Barbara Bonney :: André Previn - Diversions · Songs / Fleming · Bonney · Wiener Phil. · LSO · Previn

André Previn's long and distinguished career as a conductor has overshadowed his work as a composer and pianist, but this disc of "diversions" lifts the curtain, offering a fair sampling of Previn's output. The Diversions show his flair for colorful orchestration--in both scurrying, energetic writing and bitter-sweet lyrical material. Sallie Chisum Remembers Billy the Kid, a prostitute's account of the celebrated outlaw (with a text by The English Patient author Michael Ondaatje), is sung beautifully by Barbara Bonney, who is joined by cellist Moray Welsh for the haunting Vocalise. Renée Fleming, star of Previn's opera A Streetcar Named Desire, takes the honors in The Giraffes Go to Hamburg. It's a piece on animal suffering, whose quirkiness probably requires a Fleming to bring it off. She rounds off the disc with Previn at the piano for Three Dickinson Songs, notable as much as anything else for his sure feel for instrumental color. The third song, the beautiful and atmospheric Good Morning Midnight, makes a superb end to the program. If it leaves you wanting more, perhaps the record company will be a little more generous next time than the 56 minutes it gives us on this collection. --Keith Clarke