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Malcolm Frager and John Browning - two documentaries · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:07
  This is Jed Disler, and welcome to The Piano
• 0:11
  Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
• 0:15
  Actually, today I'm taking a little detour from
• 0:18
  the topic of piano recordings to the topic of
• 0:23
  video documentaries about two great American
• 0:27
  pianists. Over this past year, I've acquired
• 0:31
  quite a few live recordings and broadcast performances
• 0:35
  by the great American pianist Malcolm Frager.
• 0:40
  who lived from 1935 until 1991. You know, this
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  year would have been his 90th birthday, and I
• 0:48
  did nothing about it for my radio show Between
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  the Keys. I guess I still have a little bit of
• 0:55
  time to make amends, but I have to admit that
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  I had only a rather superficial knowledge of
• 1:03
  Malcolm Frager's artistry and his career. Although
• 1:06
  I knew that he was as serious and as probing
• 1:10
  a musician and scholar as he was a keyboard virtuoso,
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  I will eventually devote a podcast episode or
• 1:19
  two, maybe three, to Malcolm Frager's recordings.
• 1:23
  But I want to direct you to a wonderful book
• 1:27
  written by the late pianist and scholar, Dr.
• 1:31
  Robert J. Chaboro. That's entitled Search and
• 1:36
  Celebration, The Life and Art of Malcolm Frager.
• 1:40
  And you can find this book on Amazon .com, and
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  I highly, highly recommend it. But also, Dr.
• 1:48
  Chabora had started work on a documentary film
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  about Malcolm Frager that is called Malcolm Frager,
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  American Pianist. This is... a half -hour television
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  documentary that is a complement to the book.
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  And the documentary was completed after the author's
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  death. And I've included a link to watch the
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  documentary in my episode description. The documentary
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  is only a half hour long, but you really do get
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  the essence of Malcolm Frager's musicianship
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  and personality from bits and pieces of interviews
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  with friends and colleagues and family members.
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  And it's really well done. And I think that once
• 2:34
  you see this documentary, you definitely will
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  want to explore Malcolm Frager's recordings.
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  I actually had spoken about Malcolm Frager on
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  an earlier podcast episode that focused on the
• 2:47
  topic of great pianists who did not make as many
• 2:50
  studio recordings as they should have. Another
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  great American pianist who died relatively young,
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  well, not as young as Malcolm Frager, but certainly
• 3:01
  he was not an old man when he died, was John
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  Browning. John Browning studied with Rosina Levine
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  at Juilliard, and he was the one who premiered
• 3:12
  Samuel Barber's Piano Concerto in 1962. There's
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  a film that's called Memories of John Browning,
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  and it's not so well directed as the Malcolm
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  Frager film was in terms of visual imagination.
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  But the Browning film does have extensive footage
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  of the pianist in conversation, as well as demonstrating
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  at the piano. And there also are excerpts with
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  his teacher, Rosina Levine, giving classes. So
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  it has great documentary value in this sense.
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  And again, I've included a link to watch the
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  Browning film in my episode comments. I never
• 3:55
  heard Malcolm Frager in concert, unfortunately.
• 3:58
  I suppose I could have, but for some reason I
• 4:02
  never did. But I do have a very strong memory
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  about how I first heard John Browning. It was
• 4:09
  back in 1974, and I was a first year student
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  at Sarah Lawrence College, where I would eventually
• 4:16
  teach for more than 20 years. John Browning was
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  to play a recital in the campus music building,
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  not in the concert hall, but actually he was
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  to give a recital in one of the large teaching
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  studios where small recitals would happen on
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  occasion. And on this particular program, John
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  Browning played the Samuel Barber Piano Sonata.
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  I had never heard the Barber Sonata before, and
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  I certainly had never heard of John Browning,
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  but the event certainly made an impression on
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  my 17 -year -old ears. And then I found out that
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  the school library had John Browning's recording
• 5:02
  of the Barber Sonata. This was the recording
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  done for the small American Desto label, coupled
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  with preludes by Richard Cumming, I think. Anyway,
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  John Browning re -recorded the sonata many years
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  later, but I think this first version is the
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  better of the two recordings. And it was reissued
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  on CD. I think you can pretty easily find it.
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  And that's also a topic for a future episode,
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  recordings of the Barber Sonata. In any event,
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  do check out these two video documentaries celebrating
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  the art, the lives, and the careers of Malcolm
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  Frager and John Browning. This is Jed Disler,
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  and you've been listening to The Piano Maven,
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  your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
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  And thank you for tuning in, and I look forward
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  to being with you for our next episode.