Pianist John Browning, an elegant interpreter whose long career was sparked by a spectacular competition performance in 1956, died of heart failure yesterday at his home in Wisconsin. He was 69.
Browning, who studied with Rosina Lhévinne and later became known as an exponent of Samuel Barber's music, first won widespread acclaim after he took the silver medal at the 1956 Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels, The New York Times notes. But many observers believed that like other pianists of his generation, Browning was later overshadowed by his Juilliard classmate Van Cliburn, who became a hero after winning the gold medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958.
Nevertheless, Browning, who was known for his restrained style and intellectual approach to his art, enjoyed an active career as a soloist. He made his professional orchestral debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1956 and in 1962 he gave the premiere of Samuel Barber's Pulitzer Prize-winning Piano Concerto in conjunction with the opening of Lincoln Center. Browning's second recording of the concerto, with Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony in 1991, won a Grammy award. Browning won another Grammy in 1993 for a disc of Barber's solo works.
Browning was born to a musical family in Denver in 1933, the Times notes. He appeared as a soloist with the Denver Symphony at age 10 and began studying at Juilliard in 1950.
Browning began to cut back his performing schedule in th 1970s, but in the last decade, his career enjoyed something of a renaissance, the Times says. He was scheduled to play 22 concerts this season, but back pain forced him to curtail some of his activities even before he developed heart problems in November.
— Michael
Markowitz
"John Browning, 69, Pianist With Reserved,
Elegant Style, Is Dead"
James R.
Oestreich - The New York Times - 27 January 2003
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