Great Pianists - John Browning
John Browning, born in the U.S. and schooled at the Julliard School, has been know first and foremost as a superb pianistic craftsman, with unusual exactness musically and technically, rarely if ever playing a wrong note. His mother taught him piano when he was three years old, and at five years old he was handed over to a professional piano teacher. He was constantly exposed to music when growing up in his home and at concerts.
Browning is greatly suited to playing Ravel, having played distinctly his Left Hand Concerto, Tombeau de Couperin, and a perfectly poised, rhythmic Toccata. He recorded a renowned Prokofiev Concerti and superbly crafted Third concerto, one of his best performance works. Other 20th century works he performed include a Barber Sonata, Barber Concerto, and Cumming preludes. He performed perfect technical treatments of Chopin Etudes. Among his great classical recordings are Schumann, Beethoven variations, Rachmaninoff, and Liszt. "I play very little Liszt," reported Browning. "Mine is a big technique, geared to producing large emotion. A Liszt Hungarian rhapsody doesn't always have much emotional or musical meaning, so technically it would be very difficult for me to play one."
Browning has taught multiple master classes over the years. He reported that his first priority is to teach students not to think of technique as the most important element of performance. He tries foremost to make students conscious of sound and voice. His piano classes involve making students understand the importance of thinking in orchestral terms at the keyboard. "A good pianist doesn't just play a melody," reported Brown. "He plays a melody like a woodwind, or a string, or horn. This gives the music its color, the quality which is not associated per se with technique." The music is beyond mere finger technique - they should listen to Horowitz, for instance, who can play ten voices and make them sound like ten different instruments, he added.
Browning was quick to point out, however, that great pianists have nonetheless perfected their technique citing Ashkenazy as one who obviously put in a great deal of time on his technical skills. Ashkenazy seems to have a natural facility in double thirds, double sixths, and other similar movements. He has an unusually small hand, but still performs technical easily and effortless. This led Browning to conclude that he was born with a good amount of natural ability.
Of the Russian school of training, Browning said: "Of course the actual stance or position of the hands and fingers has much to do with the final effect of the performance. The Russian school, in imitation of Rubinstein, uses a higher bridge and a flatter finger than Americans do. The only variance is the Leschetizky School, which uses a much curved finger." Browning believed in the correct use of strong weight in playing. Not to attack the keyboard, but use strong weight which gives a richer and less percussive sound than merely hitting the key. The use of the wrist is important, but seems to be an individual trait. According to this pianist, body size and weight determine to a great extent all of the other factors in piano technique, even hand stance and wrist flexibility.
Technique, reported Browning, is not a matter of playing scales with speed. It is the ability to produce many different sounds. This ability constitutes the highest ideal of technique. Piano students need to understand that the sustaining pedal plays an important part in voicing also. Many young pianists use the pedal as a crutch and play it without relief. Consequently, true legato is not developed when a pianist constantly depresses the sustaining pedal. Unfortunately, many pianists were not trained to finesse the pedal.
When the pedal is used, it should be only for shading and for accent. "A pianist should not have to depend on it," declared Browning. "That's one of the secrets of Horowitz' playing. He doesn't need to use the pedal and, when he does use it, he achieves very subtle shades and accents. He can play pages of music without pedaling at all. He doesn't have to use the pedal because he voices so clearly and his lines are so strong."
George Szell, for example, declared that no one should consider himself a pianist if he cannot play a Bach prelude and fugue without a pedal. Contrapuntal music from the Bach period trains pianists to follow linear voices and to phrase one voice against another.
Did Browning follow a particular "method" when taking piano instruction? "As long as I played the piano as naturally as I could," said the artist, "I knew all the other facets of the art would fall into place. I always had a fairly natural technique; I always had a fairly natural sound at the keyboard, a sense of voicing, and I always was a natural pedaler, so I never gave method any conscious attention."
Browning has memorized large amounts of music. His former teacher compelled him to memorize a new sonata every week, so that by the time Browning was twenty-one he knew most of the fundamental concert literature. He declared that memorization is simply hard work, playing a piece over and over until he knew it by heart. He learned the sequences and practiced continuously.
To this pianist, a piano lesson should be started as early as possible from a technical point of view for the kind of physical coordination that is needed for piano playing. However, commented Browning, America has institutionalized the Suzuki violin method and that because it apparently works for a large number of people means the Suzuki method must use shortcuts. That alone, said the pianist, made Browning highly suspicious of the Suzuki method.
Like many other musicians, Browning feels there is a mystery behind his ability to capture and play beautiful music. "It's almost as if some supernatural or preternatural power... intervenes. I have no other way of describing it or of knowing it, but occasionally I feel it."
Pedal For Keyboards - Great Pianists - John Browning
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