John Browning, pianist, 69, dies
CharlesBunch995
By JAMES R. OESTREICH NYTimes
John Browning, a leading light in a pioneering older generation of American
pianists of seemingly limitless promise, died yesterday at his home in
Sister Bay, Wis. He was 69.
The cause was heart failure, said Shirley Kirshbaum, his publicist.
Mr. Browning studied with Rosina Lhévinne at the Juilliard School, where he
eventually found himself in the same class as Van Cliburn. Mr. Browning
stole the spotlight in 1956 with a silver medal in the Queen Elisabeth
International Music Competition in Brussels. But he and other pianists of
his generation - including Leon Fleisher, Malcolm Frager, Gary Graffman and
Byron Janis - were overshadowed when Mr. Cliburn won the gold medal at the
Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958, becoming not only a cultural but
also a political hero, bearing an American standard in the cold war.
For various reasons, most of those pianists fell short of the heavy
expectations laid on them. Mr. Cliburn has spent much of his life in
seclusion. Mr. Fleisher, Mr. Graffman and Mr. Janis all developed physical
ailments affecting their hands. Frager, who won the Queen Elisabeth
competition in 1960, died in 1991 at 56 after a relatively quiet, scholarly
career.
Mr. Browning maintained an active solo career, if never quite at the most
glamorous level, and with the name Cliburn dogging his own in many a review
and article. Although he lacked nothing in bravura technique, his pianistic
style was reserved, elegant and penetrating, more intellectual than overtly
emotional yet eminently approachable. His tastes ranged back at least to
Bach and Scarlatti, and he played harpsichord for his own enjoyment.
Mr. Browning is survived by a sister, Elizabeth Witchey of Santa Rosa,
Calif., two nephews and a niece. He was born to musical parents in Denver in
1933. Having studied piano from age 5, he appeared as a soloist with the
Denver Symphony at 10.
In 1945 his family moved to Los Angeles. He spent two years at Occidental
College there.
He began his studies at Juilliard in 1950. He won the Leventritt Competition
in New York in 1955. (Mr. Cliburn had won the year before.) He made his
professional orchestral debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1956.
In 1962 he gave the premiere of Samuel Barber's Pulitzer Prize-winning Piano
Concerto, which was written for him, in connection with the opening of
Lincoln Center. His second recording of the work, with Leonard Slatkin and
the St. Louis Symphony in 1991 for RCA Victor, won a Grammy for best
instrumental soloist with orchestra. Mr. Browning won a second Grammy in
1993 with a disc of Barber's solo works on MusicMasters. He continued to
follow the works of contemporary American composers but found relatively few
to his liking.
Despite the competition from Mr. Cliburn and others, Mr. Browning developed
a busy career, giving some 100 concerts a season.
He eased his schedule in the 1970's, explaining later that he had grown
ragged from overwork. Over the last decade, his career had something of a
renaissance. He was to play 22 concerts this season, but he had begun
canceling them because of back pains even before his final heart problems
developed in November.
His last performance was, by invitation, at the United States Supreme Court
in May. His last public appearance was at the National Gallery in Washington
in April.
Mr. Browning liked to discuss the place of morality in musical performance.
"There are choices you make, such as whether you use a finger legato or the
pedal to hold an inner voice, or how closely you follow the composer's
phrasing indications," he told an interviewer a decade ago. "You can cheat,
but as I get older, I cheat less."
Chuck
Archer070
of surprising aphorisms that stuck in the mind ("It's always a surprise how
much pressure it takes to play legato"). He was a close friend of Robert
Marcellus, George Szell's principal clarinetist; their joint master classes in
the Seventies forever influenced hundreds of young musicians.
Pan
wrote:
>John Browning, 69, Pianist With Reserved, Elegant Style, Is Dead
>By JAMES R. OESTREICH NYTimes
[snip]
I'm sorry to hear of his death. He was a great musician.
Michael
David S.
nad find his recording of the Barber Sonata, after the way I heard it
played
by Jade Simmons, a black girl (studying with J Kimura Parker), the
other night
at Rice University. I told her backstage that the way I had been
telling it out in the hall was wrong, that perhaps John Browning
should be referred to
as a WASP Jade Simmons, a bit jokingly of course. With so many notes
covered, there was never in her playing the least overindulgence in
sentimentality or lack of clarity, over so many notes, so much to make
it seem that Barber really had not written too many.
This news is very sad, as the last time I saw Browning, playing a
recital for the UH Piano Festival, he appeared to be in fine health.
That was fifteen years ago or so. While not playing nearly in the
most refined or rarefied
Classical style, as you can hear from a Brendel or Pollini or nowadays
also
with Haefliger, Cascioli, Aimard, his renditions of Mozart K. 332 and
Beethoven Opus 110 were consummate in good tastes, and in that regard
played with rounder, more beautiful tone than two or three of the
above
sometimes can muster. Rachmaninov's B-Flat Minor Sonata followed, I
think, in the more difficult original version of it, and delivered
with near all the panache of a young man playing it, and with the
elegance called for and depth of feeling to boot.
One further anecdote - I met Browning the night before his recital
during intermission at the recital of a terribly mediocre Russian
woman pianist. The U of Houston piano technician at that time, retired
now but universally regarded as a jerk by piano faculty across town,
had leaned on him hard to pick the 'monster' (the slightly beat up
American Steinway the school had at the time) and he told me that tha
was the instrument that he would be playing on. I gently nudged him a
second time to reconsider the Hamburg Steinway, and felt sweetly
vindicated when I saw the Hamburg on stage instead of the other
instrument, i.e. of torture (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
Crying out for reissue is, among other things by this underrecorded
artist, and underrepresented on CD, his series of the Prokofiev
concerti with Erich
Leinsdorf. I grew up with the recording out of it of the first two
concerti,
with which only the Beroff is about the only one truly competitive
among any halfway recent recordings. Certainly not the Bronfman, if
he did not play it on his disc any better than I heard on the L.A.
Phil broadcast last night.
(Kissin should next record it). Back on topic, it was the playing on
this disc that the Barber reminded me of a little the other night.
So very sorry to hear about the passing of this fine man and musician.
I will seke out his recording of the Barber Sonata (or at least the
Concerto) tomorrow.
arch...@aol.com (Archer070) wrote in message news:<20030127201418...@mb-da.aol.com>...
Charles Eggen
brought to Eugene, Oregon, to play the Barber piano concerto. It was a
thrilling experience to hear live, his control and power was not
lacking, although he had undoubtedly performed the work hundreds of
times since he premiered it in 1962. I am saddened that we have lost
another great artist. My condolences to all those who were close to
him and are, no doubt, experiencing a unique lose.
Charles Eggen
The following is from Kirshbaum Demler & Assoc. - Public Relations
Born in Denver in 1933, John Browning began piano studies at age five
and gave his first public appearance as soloist with the Denver
Symphony at age 10. He subsequently moved to New York City to pursue
his musical studies on scholarship with Rosina Lhevinne at The
Juilliard School. He won the Steinway Centennial Award in 1954, the
Leventritt Competition in 1955, and placed second in the Queen
Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels the following
year. Widespread attention continued when he made his professional
orchestral debut in 1956 in a critically acclaimed performance with
the New York Philharmonic and Dimitri Mitropoulos.
In 1962 Mr. Browning was chosen to give the world premiere of Samuel
Barber's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with Erich Leinsdorf and the
Boston Symphony at the inaugural celebration of New York's Lincoln
Center for the Performing Arts. Written especially for John Browning,
the piece was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and has since become the most
frequently performed American piano concerto in the past half-century.
Mr. Browning first recorded the work in 1964 with George Szell and the
Cleveland Orchestra for the CBS Masterworks label. A new recording
with Leonard Slatkin conducting the St. Louis Symphony was released in
1991 by BMG Classics/RCA Victor Red Seal. This earned Mr. Browning his
first Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Soloist with Orchestra" and
a Grammy nomination for "Best Classical Album."
John Browning’s disc of Barber’s complete solo piano repertoire,
released on MusicMasters in 1993, earned him a second Grammy Award for
"Best Classical Instrumental Soloist Without Orchestra." In 1994,
Deutsche Grammophon released Mr. Browning’s recording of the complete
Barber songs with soprano Cheryl Studer and baritone Thomas Hampson.
CD Review Magazine named the recording "Disc of the Month" and hailed
Mr. Browning as "the most authoritative pianist to ever play this
repertoire." A highly acclaimed recording of the Beethoven "Triple"
Concerto with violinist Pinchas Zukerman, cellist Ralph Kirshbaum, and
Christoph Eschenbach conducting the London Symphony Orchestra was
released in 1998 by BMG Classics/RCA Victor Red Seal. Mr. Browning can
also be heard on the Delos, Capitol, RCA and Seraphim labels
performing the complete Chopin Etudes, all five Prokofiev piano
concerti, and Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1. Additional releases
include an all-Scarlatti disc for MusicMasters and a recording of the
Brahms Piano Quintet and Horn Trio with members of the St. Luke’s
Chamber Ensemble scheduled for release this season.
HankM219
>in May.
I am, of course, saddened by the death of John Browning. But I was fascinated
by this little tidbit from his NYTimes obit. This is the first I heard of a
music performance at the Supreme Court. Does the Court regularly invite
classical musicians to perform?
Henry Maurer, Cherry Hill, NJ, USA
hank...@aol.com or hsma...@worldnet.att.net
Archer070
>classical musicians to perform?
>Henry Maurer, Cherry Hill, NJ, USA
Don't know, but Justice Abe Fortas used to
go up to Marlboro, Vt., with his violin, and Rudolf Serkin would let him play
with the big boys. Fortas wasn't all that great a player, as I've heard the
story, but nobody minded.
Peter H. Granzeau
wrote:
>John Browning, a leading light in a pioneering older generation of American
>pianists of seemingly limitless promise, died yesterday at his home in
>Sister Bay, Wis. He was 69.
I can count the orchestral concerts I have attended on my left hand
and have the thumb left over, but I did see a John Browning
performance with the Virginia Symphony, playing the Barber concerto.
I was impressed.
Lawyer
the Supreme Court, at the Justices' invitation.
I believe it was Justice Blackmun who started the concert series. Then
Justice O'Connor took it over for several years. Currently, Justice
Ginsburg has been in charge. I don't have any information about funding
or tickets -- or any idea of who's played there in the past, although I
suspect that the Supreme Court Historical Society would be the place to
check.
>>His last performance was, by invitation, at the United
>> States Supreme Court
>
> I am, of course, saddened by the death of John Browning.
> But I was fascinated
> by this little tidbit from his NYTimes obit. This is the
> first I heard of a
> music performance at the Supreme Court. Does the Court
> regularly invite
> classical musicians to perform?
--
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Frisbie Einstein
Or if they did, had enough good sense to keep this to themselves.
Abe Fortas was a crony of LBJ. Lyndon was approached by Eartha Kitt
at a party, and she told LBJ that the Vietnam War was a bad idea.
Eartha could not find work again for the remainder of Lyndon's life.
Peter T. Daniels
Justice Ginsburg's son runs a record label, Cedille, out of Chicago,
which features excellent performances by local musicians, such as Rachel
Barton, Easley Blackwood, and David Schrader.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net