Samuel Barber Piano concerto Op.38, John Browning, Complete

[@gregwardson3658]

I saw Browning play this piece in Prospect Park in Brooklyn in the summer of 1969 with the NY Philharmonic. I think it was conducted by Leonard Bernstein, but I'm nor 100% sure as was only 16 and in total awe of my surroundings. It was a absolutely MIND-BLOWING experience! I was a guest of one of Mr. Browning's dear friends and we all stood at the front edge of the stage, less than 30 feet from the piano. I wasn't familiar with the work but was immediately and completely bowled over by the power and emotion of his playing, the writing, and especially the sound and majesty of the orchestra from so close. Changed this 16 year old's life forever: absolutely spectacular...

[@Twentythousandlps]

The conductor on that occasion was Josef Krips. Bernstein never conducted the Barber Piano Concerto.

[@paulpisano762]

​@@TwentythousandlpsThat's too bad

[@johnnauman347]

God, lucky you. John was the the best man ever. I got to know him after Juilliard. Leonid Kuzmin introduced us.

[@gljm]

My favorite story about this concerto is that Barber would bring what he had written to Browning so that he could learn it in time for the premier. One day Barber brought over the latest measures he had composed for Browning to see. Browning looked at it and said that it was unplayable. Barber then sat down at the piano and played it, to which Browning said , that Barber had played it at half the tempo that Barber had written it and it was unplayable at the tempo Barber wanted. They went back and forth and finally Barber said that they should bring it to Vladimir Horowitz , who had premiered Barber's Piano Sonata, and if Horowitz said it could be played than Browning would would practice it no matter what. They go to Horowitz and Barber puts the manuscript on the piano, Horowitz studies it for a minute, hands it back to Barber and states that it's Unplayable. Barber rewrote the passage.

[@charlestimberlake5522]

Great story! Great concetor!

[@jonathanbein5559]

I can imagine there are few pieces that Barber considered unplayable!! Thanks for sharing that.

[@MichaelConwayBaker]

One of the great masterpieces of the 20th c. beautifully performed by John Browning with wonderful orchestral accompaniment. A real treat to listen to.

[@Ic3d34rth]

never before has a piece of music conveyed so many moods to me. this is brilliance.

[@lkrupp215]

Barber wrote this concerto for Browning. Browning premiered it. They collaborated many times. This is about as good as it gets.

[@walterwitty9290]

Agreed. An amazing performance. Don't think anyone has matched it.

[@brettwilcots8608]

Saw him play was magic and discipl.Peace.

[@tflnc]

I heard Browning play this at Ravinia with the Chicago Symphony. Afterwards I went back stage with some friends and he autographed our playbill. He was quite the gentleman, puffing elegantly away on a cigarette while talking to us about the difficulty of this piece. His magnificent performance stays with me .

[@hugginduff]

one of the greatest recording ever..with George Szell and the Cleveland orchestra, 1965

[@beedoe51]

The person that gave a thumbs down must be in a coma. This is perfection. John Browning said he's played this concerto over 400 times and it doesn't get any easier. Thanks for posting this masterpiece!!

[@Obaysch]

Steve Wright sorry, its hardly a masterpiece. Barbers imspiration was totally dried up, mechanical and shrill. Browning's playing is driven and mechanical, horribly overpracticed.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

Obaysch your ear is tin my friend.

[@WilliamScharf]

Obaysch Please immediately make an appointment at your nearest psychiatrist and get the proper medication you need.

[@fgldnglbs]

..and another recording with Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony? That's an advocate. All sorts of moods with a slam bang ending. Looking forward to hearing this live with Garrick Ohlsson and the Philadelphians in November(along with Copland's complete Appalachian Spring].

[@benjaminmoszkowicz8149]

Obaysch you are right! These people are pretentious assholes that think this is music🤦🏻‍♂️

[@johnzielinski9951]

I grew up with this recording and still consider it the best one. I heard Browning play the piece with the Seattle Symphony toward the end of his life and he played it considerably slower. This version is on fire.

[@tflnc]

I heard John Browning play this live with the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia in the mid-70s while attending the concert with several high school friends. I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Browning after the concert. He was extremely polished and had a dry wit. While smoking a cigarette, he crossed one hand over the another to show how consistently complicated it was to play the concerto. This is the benchmark for all Barber concerto performances. Anyone who derides this performance doesn't know what he's talking about.

[@johnrapp8873]

This is the most awesome performance of this beautiful concerto in history! Thank You Mr. Browning and Conductor and Orchestra!..John Rapp

[@MichaelConwayBaker]

A fabulous performance of, perhaps, the greatest piano concerto by , perhaps, the greatest American composer.

[@oboist3]

I played 2nd oboe in this work, in a performance given in Christchurch NZ by a brilliant young British pianist Leon McCawley, who was about 18 at the time. I was spellbound. I thought he was particularly brave considering John Browning was performing it with the NZSO around the same time.

[@srothbardt]

THE recording of the Barber.

[@johnnauman347]

Yes, indeed!

[@TempodiPiano]

I had no idea Barber could be so amusing, complex, light... I underestimated him. Thank you for this video.

[@tbarrelier]

This is not music. It is prophetic utterance.

[@MuseDuCafe]

Uh, the guy just said something highly complimentary about the piece :-)

[@darrylschultz9311]

@@MuseDuCafe Maybe ol' Ophir assumed that what was meant by "this is prophetic utterance" was that the listener would spew their gutz at the end.(I'm quite liking bits here and there on my 1st hearing though,so I should be okay-fingers crossed).

[@alexculbreti3169]

I heard Mr. Browning play this when I was 25. Profound performance. Such ferocity at times, intermixed with haunting beauty. The quintessential 20th century American piano concerto. Yuja ? Volodos ? someone must champion this magnificent masterpiece. I love Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Bartok- but please add Barber to your repertoire !

[@darrylschultz9311]

His hair looks fine to me.

[@johnrapp8873]

a most difficult and beautiful piece, and what a most beautiful performance of conductor, orchestra and pianist....thank You..John Rapp

[@MyFlipNWorld]

That's some ferocious piano playing.

[@pvonberg]

So, so beautiful !

[@Mazarbul1]

My favorite version of this awesome masterwork ^^.

[@johnrapp8873]

What a most beautiful performance of this concerto of pianist and orchestra. Thank You so much..John Rapp

[@FourthDerivative]

The second movement.... just breathtaking

[@danielshumway7046]

I love the hell out of this piece. Unbelievable!

[@Kaoru_Hasegawa_piano]

I love this piece and this performance.

[@octavianeandracles5868]

i'm here because today while i was attending the TOEIC in France, the examinator put this music before the exam. How i succeed to the TOEIC ? Who cares : this is gold.

[@johnrondeau8500]

Please forgive me for being so pedestrian HOLY SHIT! Brilliant it makes Prokofiev sound like childs play.

[@key160]

This has always been a favorite.

[@ralphmadach55]

A wonderful and impressive concert, which always moves me to tears. Fantastically interpreted!

[@StygianStyle]

I fucking love this, and I'm not even a pianist. It's the most badass piece for the piano.

[@NanYatesNews]

The 14 complete @%#*+%’s who gave this a thumbs down know absolutely NOTHING about MUSIC. Period! I had this on vinyl and I wore it out!!! Thank you 🙏 so much for posting this magnificent piece!!!

[@josephmarcello7481]

Glad to hear that, nan.. after the premier performance I heard over the radio, I listened to the recording of the concerto once a week for years, so magical and ineluctable wh ere it's beauties

[@johnrapp8873]

This,an awesome and beautiful performance of a great work of a brilliant composer, and performed by a great and talented pianist, conductor and orchestra! ..Thank you so much..John Rapp

[@caramellattes2381]

I had the opportunity to work with Mr. Browning as a young staffer with the San Antonio Symphony in the 90s. When you drive someone around and accompany them so they are not eating solo, you learn a lot about someone. :) All I can say is that his interpretation of the Barber changed over the years but none less brilliant than the other. I love this piece (along with the violin concerto). It was perfect for Browning.

[@MuseDuCafe]

+CaramelLattes Barber composed the piece for John Browning, and the composer kept Browning's specific technical strenghths and qualities of his musicianship in mind. It fit Browning, as it were, like a kid glove.

[@danielshumway7046]

I'm so grateful that Barber was born. Such tragedy if he was not...

[@chopincookies]

What a Mahlerian introduction into the second movement... ah, mesmerising.

[@Skidoo22]

Great music!

[@walshamite]

This is enlightening, if demanding, stuff. It doesn't massage you or let you off the hook. Here is amazing piano technique. To travel even further from structural safety and what Charles Ives dad called "pretty tunes", KZbin the violin concerto composed by Jiri Teml. Very rewarding, if you stick with it and get inside it. Modern classics insist we don't demand instant gratification. We may have to work with it till we get it.

[@kiaraeijo]

This concerto is so underrated and to think that this concerto won Barber his second Pulitzer Prize! I would love to play someday his Canzone for Flute and Piano which was originally the slow movement of this concerto and then Barber himself transcribed that movement for flute and piano.😊❤️👏👏👏👏

[@DIDIERFARNIR]

Magnifique concerto avec un final d'une difficulté extraordinaire… et dans une version de référence….

[@beedoe51]

RIP John Browning!!

[@seajaycbx]

The Canzone is a masterwork, no doubt about it. Woodwinds contribute to the overall performance in their majesty. The theme song is a little like a sonnet or chant yes, but greater than anything the poets have produced. Superb from beginning to end.

[@StygianStyle]

I was wondering why there were so many uploads of Browning, and now I know why. Incredible. It's funny how the cadenza is in the middle of the 1st movement in this piece instead of at the end.

[@hectorbarrionuevo6034]

As comments below point out this work is brilliant for its energy, virtuosity, harmonic complexity, and orchestration! The second movement is Romantic and features a beautiful theme; the last movement is a driving moto perpetuo. The music remains in tension throughout the fast sections but Barber manages to write highly compelling music nonetheless !!!

[@Feliandyx16]

El ballet coreografiado con esta música es sensacional interpretado por Baryshnikov y el ABT ¡¡

[@WilliamScharf]

Most comments are about the Browning performance, and rightfully so. But we should not forget the Cleveland Orchestra and maestro Szell. The orchestra was at its peak under his leadership. And....in all the years I have been attending the New York Philharmonic concerts at Lincoln Center I have never heard this concerto performed once. A TOTAL DISGRACE!!

[@Clementine80210]

William Scharf: I heard it twice performed and both times with Browning as soloist. Once with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra & once with the Chautauqua Symphony. I consider myself blessed!

[@WilliamScharf]

You were blessed my friend.

[@kinolieber]

I never did either, but on November 6, 1983 I did hear it played in Avery Fisher Hall by The American Composers Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies with - of all people - Keith Jarrett at the piano. He played from a score and he acquitted himself admirably.

[@Quotenwagnerianer]

@@Clementine80210 Which doesn't exactly speak for the work having a breakthrough. When the only pianist who plays it is the one it was written for.

[@sud669]

best reccording the first one

[@jozefmj399]

Very nice

[@patriciakendel7121]

Marc Lifschey told my teacher, William Criss, that this Recording was the only one that he (Lifschey) thought "he sounded any good on". Bob

[@stephengreco6844]

A great concerto, but I lost the piano as protagonist a little bit. And actually, for the year in which it was written, it seemed a little overheated. Do you think that was an identity thing?

[@cgmarlowe777]

John Browning's performance is optimal.

[@petersimon5231]

I'm afraid not everybody likes this kind of music, which feels even crazier than Scriabin, or Bartok, who I still prefer. Perfection, greatest recording ever, these are labels that pertain to measurable races. Music is a matter of taste, and there's nobody to judge that of anybody. I can't enjoy this, full stop.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

Peter Simon Yes, if you cannot enjoy this, you have simply not let yourself. I shiver to think what you would say of Ives 4th.

[@andrewpetersen5272]

I also think your critique of words is in error as well. Superlatives can be used in any subjective commentary. Go out and smell the flowers. This is the best Spring ever;)

[@budit4461]

I can understand your sentiment... but wait... RACE??? What does this have to do this with race????

[@AbstractASMR1]

this is barber's second best concerto. The violin is one of the best concertos ever. After that I rate the capricorn, then the cello concerto, which I think is only OK, and nowhere near as powerful and interesting as his other concertos. I think he wrote four concerti overall, am I missing any?

[@bmort1313]

You could consider the Canzonetta for Oboe, it was supposed to be a full oboe concerto if he didn’t die

[@AbstractASMR1]

@@bmort1313 Very nice piece, new to me! Thx for the recommend...any others from Barber you can recommend? I get the feeling that Barber was not terribly prolific, that his entire output is a bit on the more modest size of things...

[@charlestimberlake5522]

Good assessment. I like Barber's work very much, but must admit that I've never warmed up to the cello concerto.

[@rexiiforsure9558]

This is one of Dr. Starling's favorites

[@h0ll0wm9n]

A very fine performance here. But I think the Naxos version with Alsop and RSNO is a bit better.

[@JAMESLEVEE]

The key is G Major. I believe this won a Pulitzer, didn't it? Ah, I just scrolled down and somebody else confirmed that the answer is YES!!!

[@remomazzetti8757]

This Concerto is not in G major. Each movement is in a different key. The first movement is in E minor, the second is in C sharp minor, and the Finale is in B flat minor.

[@robotnik77]

Hey! My cat played this yesterday!! He doesn't look like a genius...but he does have a certain power that insures his servants feed him.

[@danielshumway7046]

Lololol, look up barber's song the monk and his cat, pangur white pangur

[@danielshumway7046]

I'm guessing that was what u referred to

[@みよの-f6f]

20:00

[@sylvielopez2686]

Pub brrrrr......

[@michael69040]

This is the first time I've heard this work. I think the obvious gnarliness would evoke more astonishment and delight from an audience if two pianists were duking it out. Some lovely writing but also a little too much borrowing from Stravinsky's palette of tricks.

[@MuseDuCafe]

You clearly lack the breadth of listening experience, or the ear, because there is not one 'Stravinskian' bit of musical procedure in this piece, not one, anywhere.

[@danielshumway7046]

Wow. Keep listening. You must learn to appreciate this monstrously powerful statement

[@josephmarcello7481]

Sorry friend, but as a composer of over 60 years who knows the Stravinsky output and technique for better than you might ever be able to imagine, and you consider Samuel Barber one of the handful of earth's greatest musical creators, you are speaking out of here and pitiful ignorance when you imagine that barber is somehow, as you put it, employing Stravinsky's tricks.. what a pretentious and ignorant opinion! As a matter of fact, Stravinsky could well have done with having a few of Samuel Barber's gifts, because, if you have enough musical skill to analyze Mr Stravinsky's output, he was congenitally incapable of creating an original Melody of any duration to speak of. Rather he borrowed folk songs and other motifs which he then brilliantly elaborated. My suggestion for your rather shrunken musical sensibilities, is to truly immerse yourself in some self-expansion and immerse yourself in far More of Mr barbers masterpieces than it seems you have allowed yourself to do to this point. There is a reason why those with far deeper musical consciousness than yourself agreed to Grant him not one but two people surprises, including one for this work. Wake up and grow up and listen to what you are now deaf to before you lose the opportunity completely.

[@michael69040]

@@josephmarcello7481 Be specific and we'll do battle since I too am a composer but not of silly "classical" works. It is an opinion-I didn't like what I heard from Barber and used Stravinsky to compare. Were you expecting Honegger of Hindemith for reference? I just listened again to some snippets- very beholding to the academic rules of the time. Barber has written some wonderful music- this has some lovely moments for the orchestra but the piano part is typical crashing crap. But! I'll listen again to see if my first impression made any sense. I might have had too many Imperial Stouts.

[@charlestimberlake5522]

@@josephmarcello7481 I agree with your assessment of Stravinsky, but there are more pleasant ways of stating it than yours.

[@pianotalent]

No, thank you! the second half of the 20th century and after of the SO CALLED classical music... is not for me...THANK You, this is not even healthy for your body to listen to. People are blind..or pretend they understand it...Of course, they even established prize awards for this kind of music in the 21st century... A waste of time, energy and finances...PERIOD!

[@beejaybath]

Call me a Philistine - or whatever, but I like a piano concerto to have a rattling good theme (Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Chopin, etc). I don't care how difficult it is. To me, this is so much 'embellished' and discordant rubbish. Give me his Adagio for Strings any day... and even that turned very discordant. This is just bobbins to my ear 'oles.

[@MuseDuCafe]

As a personal opinion, valid. As an informed critique, ridiculous.

[@danielshumway7046]

Sad

[@Quotenwagnerianer]

So just because you are either incapable or unwilling to understand this form of art, everybody else is somehow blind? Rrrright... This was the way forward in classical music. Music that is both modern and nostalgic at the same time. Music that doesn't throw out everything that came before like Serialism did. You can stick with your Mozart and Rachmaninov if you so wish, but just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean that this is gibberish.

[@BRUXXUS]

It's funny that you've spent time and energy commenting on every performance of this piece you could find with this same thing. This may come as a shock to you, but different people enjoy different things. Maybe spend your time enjoying things you love instead of trying to make people feel bad for listening to something they love.