Van Cliburn plays at the final of the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition Previously unpublished with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kyrill Kondrashin Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1 Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No.3 Kabalevsky: Rondo. * * * “Van Cliburn, the American pianist whose first-place award at the 1958 Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow made him an overnight sensation and propelled him to a phenomenally successful and lucrative career, though a short-lived one, died 27 Feb., 2013, in Fort Worth. He was 78. Mr. Cliburn, a Texan, was a lanky 23-year-old when he clinched the gold medal in the inaugural year of the Tchaikovsky competition, and the feat, in Moscow was viewed as an American triumph over the Soviet Union at the height of the cold war. He became a cultural celebrity of pop-star dimensions and brought overdue attention to the musical assets of his native land. When Mr. Cliburn returned to New York, he was given a ticker-tape parade in Lower Manhattan, which offered the sight of about 100,000 people lining the streets and cheering a classical musician. In a ceremony at City Hall, Mayor Robert F. Wagner proclaimed that Mr. Cliburn’s accomplishment was ‘a dramatic testimonial to American culture’ and that ‘with his two hands, Van Cliburn struck a chord which has resounded around the world, raising our prestige with artists and music lovers everywhere’. Even before his Moscow victory, the Juilliard-trained Mr. Cliburn was a notable up-and-coming pianist. He won the Leventritt Foundation Award in 1954, which earned him débuts with five major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic under Dimitri Mitropoulos. For that performance, at Carnegie Hall in November 1954, he performed the work that would become his signature piece, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concert #1, garnering enthusiastic reviews and a contract with Columbia Artists. At the time, America had produced an exceptional generation of pianists besides Mr. Cliburn who were all in promising stages of their own careers, among them Leon Fleisher, Byron Janis, Gary Graffman and Eugene Istomin. But the Tchaikovsky competition came at a historically important time: a period when American morale had been badly shaken by the Soviet Union’s launching of the world’s first orbiting satellite, the Sputnik, in 1957. The impact of Mr. Cliburn’s victory was further enhanced by a series of vivid articles written for The New York Times by Max Frankel, then a foreign correspondent based in Moscow and later an executive editor of the paper. The reports of Mr. Cliburn’s progress — prevailing during the early rounds, making it to the finals and becoming the darling of the Russian people, who embraced him in the streets and flooded him with fan mail and flowers — created national anticipation as he went into the finals. Mr. Cliburn was at first oblivious to the political ramifications of the Tchaikovsky prize. Mr. Cliburn was a naturally gifted pianist whose enormous hands had an uncommonly wide span. He developed a commanding technique, cultivated an exceptionally warm tone and manifested solid musical instincts. At its best, his playing had a surging Romantic fervor, but leavened by an unsentimental restraint that seemed peculiarly American. The towering Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter, a juror for the competition, described Mr. Cliburn as a genius — a word, he added, ‘I do not use lightly about performers’. But if the Tchaikovsky competition represented Mr. Cliburn’s breakthrough, it also turned out to be his undoing. Relying inordinately on his keen musical instincts, he was not an especially probing artist, and his growth was stalled by his early success. Audiences everywhere wanted to hear him in his prizewinning pieces, the Tchaikovsky First Concerto and the Rachmaninoff Third. Every American town with a community concert series wanted him to come play a recital. His subsequent explorations of wider repertory grew increasingly insecure. During the 1960s he played less and less. By 1978 he had retired from the concert stage; he returned in 1989, but performed rarely. Ultimately, his promise and potential were never fulfilled. But the extent of his talent was apparent early on. Mr. Cliburn leaves a lasting if not extensive discography. One recording in particular, his performance of the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto recorded live at Carnegie Hall on the night of his post-Tchaikovsky competition concert, was praised by Mr. Schonberg, the critic, for its technical strength, musical poise, and ‘manly lyricism unmarred by eccentricity’. Mr. Schonberg then added, prophetically, ‘No matter what Cliburn eventually goes on to do this will be one of the great spots of his career; and if for some reason he fails to fulfill his potentialities, he will always have this to look back upon’.” - Anthony Tommasini, THE NEW YORK TIMES, 27 Feb., 2013 "Van Cliburn's RCA recordings of the Tchaikovsky First and Rachmaninov Third concertos easily justify the pianist's youthful acclaim after winning the first International Tchaikovsky Competition. However, these live performances from the event's final round on April 11, 1958 communicate far more excitement alongside Cliburn's innately lyrical gifts. In his own way, Cliburn matches Horowitz and Argerich for palpable electricity, elemental fervor, emotional daring, singing line, and unabashed romanticism. Tempos are not so broad as annotator Bryce Morrison claims, yet for all the forward sweep both Cliburn and conductor Kyrill Kondrashin generate, nothing ever sounds rushed. The pianist takes time to articulate and shape countermelodies and inner voices without undue lingering or exaggerating details. Cliburn's intelligent musicality makes room for virtuosic panache, as borne out in the Tchaikovsky concerto's infamous octaves and demanding coda. His huge hands also make less work and more sense out of Rachmaninov's thicker first-movement cadenza in comparison to many pianists. Small wonder Cliburn swept the Russian audiences off their feet. Under Kondrashin's inspired and involving leadership the less than world-class orchestra plays with impressive point and rhythmic verve (note the rapid piano and woodwind exchanges in the Tchaikovsky finale, or the vividly characterized first-desk solos throughout the Rachmaninov). For an encore, Cliburn tosses off Kabalevsky's Rondo (written for the competition) as if he were improvising it on the spot. The sonics do not exactly represent the era's state of the art, yet they are balanced and listenable. A real treat for piano buffs." -Jed Distler, Classics Today.com, Feb., 2009