Memories of John Browning : The Lhevinne Legacy Continues (2006)
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- Опубліковано 22 чер 2021
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Memories of John Browning: The Lhevinne Legacy Continues (2006)
This documentary was made by Salome Ramras Arkatov.
I do not own this video's copyright and I will delete the video if the owner wants me to delete this video. This needs to be seen and John Browning is to be remembered.
If you live in the USA, the complete documentary can be ordered in better quality here: www.arkatovproductions.com/bro...
JOHN BROWNING
Born into a musical family, Browning began to study the piano at the age of five. His mother had studied with the great Theodor Leschetizky and his father was a violinist with the Denver Symphony Orchestra. In 1945 the family moved to Los Angeles where the twelve-year-old Browning worked with Lee Pattison (who had been a pupil of Schnabel) and Rosina Lhévinne, who invited him to study with her at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. However, Browning decided first to study English, history and philosophy at Occidental College before going full time to the Juilliard in 1953. Straight away he began winning awards: the Hollywood Bowl Young Artists Competition and the Steinway Centennial Award in 1954, and, a year later, the Leventritt Award. He gained second prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels (Vladimir Ashkenazy won first prize) and, in the same year of 1956, made his orchestral debut with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and Dimitri Mitropoulos.
This was the start of a successful career, leading to further engagements in the late 1950s with conductors of the stature of Eduard van Beinum and William Steinberg. Browning’s recital debut was given at New York’s Town Hall in 1958.
The debut with Mitropoulos was also the catalyst for Browning’s association with Samuel Barber, as the composer had been at the performance and was so impressed that he invited Browning to his home to play through his Piano Sonata. When, in 1962, Barber was asked to compose a work for the opening of New York’s Lincoln Center celebrations, he conceived a piano concerto with Browning as soloist.
Written to suit Browning’s virtuoso skills, it became indelibly linked with him. After the debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Erich Leinsdorf he performed it on countless occasions and recorded it twice, with George Szell in 1964 and Leonard Slatkin in 1990.
In the wake of Van Cliburn’s success in Moscow in 1958, Browning toured the USSR and much of Europe in 1965 with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, and was invited to return to the USSR and Poland in 1967.
By the 1970s Browning found, as some performing artists do, that he was beginning to lose his sense of purpose and his artistic sensitivity. He examined his purpose in life and the whole process of performing, later devoting time to studying the music of Liszt, as well as the bel canto style of singers and the way it can be applied to playing the piano, as Chopin had recommended. During his sixties Browning reduced his concert schedule from around 100 performances a year to eighty; he continued to record sporadically and to practise for five or six hours per day.
Browning was popular as a teacher of master-classes, which he gave at Northwestern University and the Manhattan School of Music. He was awarded honorary doctorates from Ithaca College in 1972 and Occidental College in 1975.
Browning’s repertoire was based around the Russians, Mozart, Beethoven, French Impressionists, Chopin and Liszt. He recorded for many labels, his first LPs being made for Capitol. A debut recital disc was followed by one of Bach and Beethoven, and around 1961 he recorded Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand with Erich Leinsdorf and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
I was very fortunate to have met n got to know not only the fantastic musician but the very funny man inside the musician. I was Gertrude Sternberghs private nurse for the last 5yrs of her life. John would come to her mansion n give concerts in Reading Pennsylvania. Gertrude n John were friends. He had a adorable little dog Tyler, During a concert John handed me his dog n he sat him on my lap. I was so into his performance that I forgot that when he finished the dog would go over to John at the final of a musical piece, the dog would show his appreciation of his flawless performance by barking n doing a doggy version of clapping, basically sitting pretty n waving his paws at John. I was mortified n embarrassed that I allowed the dog to fly off of my lap. John thought it was funny. You see he would come to Gertrude Sternbergh home for a week before the concert. N he practiced 2xs a day. He never minded when he practiced if someone sat n listened or if someone passed him while he practiced. Even while he practiced Tyler gave his applause some times. The night of the concert he just picked Tyler up kissed him n sat him down on my lap. N told Tyler to sit n stay on Auntie Trena's lap n loud enough for most of the 200 people in the house to hear. He just smiled ear to ear n went back to his concert. He played all Gershwin pieces that night. N he was brilliant he won a Grammy that year. He even played Gertrude's fair well concert . When she died. He made me love classical music on the piano. Once while he was practicing I was taking Silver pieces from one side of the house to the other side of the house. He grabbed me n made he sit next to him on the piano bench. He asked me why I was tip toeing pass him, I said I did not want to disturb his practice. He said no I was not distracting him from practice but I was making him laugh. Then he asked me what my favorite music was. I told him Rock n roll. He then wanted to know if I had any classical music favorites. Of course I said yes Moonlight Sonata. He then played it for me. It was so beautiful I cried. He then told me that he gets so much satisfaction from making people feel with his music. N that by me crying That was the best compliment I could give him. I only was in his presence for a total of three times,a week each time. But I will never forget him. He managed to touch my heart with his kindness, his love of a naughty joke,N most of all he made the piano sing n make all in his presence feel n love what he could do on that piano.
Thank you very much for the story to remember a giant I never knew!
Such a beautiful soul and incredible virtuoso...John Browning is without doubt the link from the Lhevinne legacy to much of all contemporary piano pedagogy.
How lucky we get to see a virtuoso speak about technique that Horowitz agreed with.
oh that Rach prelude! thanks for this!
Thank you so much for the timeless and stunning presentation. Though I didn't know the name of John Browning in his lifetime, his music has touched me as much as the legendary giant Horowitz.....God blesses their souls!!
Thank you for this video! Today I get to know John Browning! Need to study further, his explanation are very clear and practical. Btw the end of his nocturne gave me strong shivers, fantastic!
İ was wishing to be able to watch this one day because it's not available to buy in my country. Thank you so much.
Thank you for posting ❤️ I was a big fan of Madam Lhevinne’s documentary that I have watched many times, it’s nice to know about one of her star pupils John Browning 🙏
Спасибо ..
Exquisite performance if the Rachmaninoff Prelude. Maybe not as perfumed as Horowitz’, but then you hear all the notes.
Thank you for sharing such a valuable document.
The part about Browning loneliness brought up the issue of being an homosexual man back then. It must have been such a terrible, psychologically damning situation for anyone growing up in those times, like for so many great classical musicians from that era... Cliburn, Horowitz, Richter, Wild, Bernstein, Rosen, Cherkassky, Copland, Britten, Barber, Thompson, Blitzstein, Diamond, Rorem, Menotti, Tippet, Strayhorn, Milstein... Liberace, for god sake!
Totally agree!
There was a whole school in Russia that would teach (only to super-gifted pianists) the flat finger-elbows close to body-sits far away and lean-in technique! The most famous ones were Joseph Lehvinne and Vladimir Horowitz
Exactly to the point that if a piano student has an extraordinary charisma and develops like John Browning did, it takes the genius of the pianist to the sublime level. None of my teachers ever taught me to change the position of the hand on the keys of the piano other than curl fingers. On my view I take flat fingers (maybe not as full as Horowitz) useful for singing tone passages. But even then, if I'm not 100% comfortable with fully curl fingers how can I rely on playing difficult piano pieces with ''timbre'' in parallel to all the great pianists that studied the Russian method of piano playing;
Buena Maestria, en el camino de Chopin