& Xerxes was there

Barber at Lincoln Center


In September of 1962, New York City celebrated the grand opening of a newly completed concert hall at Lincoln Center with a week of gala concerts. These days, the venue in question is called "Avery Fisher Hall," but back in 1962, when the paint was still wet and the carpet brand-new, it was called "Philharmonic Hall," as it was built as the new home of the New York Philharmonic.


On today's date that year, Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony played the second concert in the newly completed hall, and on their program was a newly completed Piano Concerto by the American composer, Samuel Barber.
The concerto was tailor-made for John Browning, who consulted with Barber as the work was being written. Even so, Browning received the completed score of the technically challenging new concerto just two weeks before the premiere. "He really wanted to push every instrument to its limits," recalled Browning. "Barber was really a virtuoso composer. His sense of craft was consummate. As a virtuoso composer, he loved to write for virtuoso artists who were at the same time lyrical."
So popular was Barber's new concerto, that within a year, Browning was asked to perform it over 30 times with a variety of other orchestras. In 1965 Browning toured the Soviet Union, Scandinavia, and Western Europe, performing Barber's Piano Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra and conductor George Szell.