John Browning

Few pianists emerging after Vladimir Horowitz achieved the stature of genuine virtuoso attained by John Browning. Commanding technical resources, a capacity to produce an extensive palette of tonal shadings and profound reserves of volume, together with unwavering commitment to each performance, placed him among the era’s leading musicians. Unlike any other American pianist of his generation, he sustained an unbroken line of artistic development free from interruptions stemming from physical injury or personal upheaval.

Both parents were active musicians, his father a violinist and his mother a pianist. Raised in Denver, he began piano lessons at age five. He later described a gathering after a local concert at which Béla Bartók and Joseph Szigeti visited his family’s home, recalling the sight of his mother turning pages for Bartók at the piano. His first public appearance occurred at ten, when he performed as soloist with the Denver Symphony. Summer study with Josef and Rosina Lhévinne led to extended work with Rosina Lhévinne at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. After the family relocated to Los Angeles, further lessons with Lee Pattison strengthened his technique and introduced the core works that would constitute his repertory.

Three important prizes accelerated his rise. He received the Steinway Centennial Award in 1954, won first prize in the Leventritt Competition in 1955, and took second prize at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels in 1956.

Browning first appeared with the New York Philharmonic in 1956 and subsequently performed in virtually every major music center worldwide. His debut recording, made at twenty-five, already showed a fully formed artist in possession of both refined technique and searching musical insight.

Samuel Barber noticed Browning’s playing and entrusted him with the 1962 New York premiere of the Barber Piano Concerto under Erich Leinsdorf. Critics and audiences alike welcomed the work, which thereafter remained the central item in Browning’s repertory. He recorded it twice, first with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra and later with Leonard Slatkin and the Saint Louis Symphony; the second version brought Browning his first Grammy, while his second Grammy recognized a collection of Barber’s solo piano pieces.

His carefully chosen repertory, suited to a pianist of exceptional power and authority, encompassed Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Ravel. Among later twentieth-century composers, Barber occupied a prominent place, as did Richard Cumming.

In addition to engagements with the principal orchestras of the United States and Europe, Browning toured Russia four times and appeared regularly at America’s leading summer festivals. He continued performing into the new century; his final concerts took place in Washington, DC, in spring 2002. He died of heart failure at his home in early 2003.