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I had the opportunity to hear him play on two different occasions (the Tchaikovsky 1 and Rachmaninoff 2) and also sat at the same table and chatted briefly with him at a Symphony fundraiser many years ago. Such a gentleman - a class act. Fifty years from now Cliburn will still be remembered as one of the great pianists of the 20th Century - long after many of his peers have been forgotten. RIP.
As I have written before, I experienced one of the greatest moments in my life when I watched him perform at Grant Park in Chicago right after his triumph in Russia. This was in 1958.
In this day of such crass and insulting noise that is considered by so many as music, Mr. Cliburn is so far above it all that he is a world in and of itself. I can think of no greater and more deserved praise.
With a heavy heart, Kathleen
Chopin’s music is all I need to look into my soul.
As a child I remember him winning the Tchaikovsky. My mother rushed out and bought the Tchaikovsky as soon as it came out and listened to it endlessly.
One of the great disappointments in my life was not hearing him live.
I was just listening to his Chopin 3rd Ballade last night. It remains my favorite performance of that work.
"Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!"
Van was one of those larger than life guys that I was lucky to meet in my piano youth at a small college in South Jersey back in the early 70's. I remember he landed in an adjacent field in a helicopter, never warmed up and just hastened to the hall, sat down and played a typically grand program. He met with all of the aspiring young pianists at a reception afterwards and chatted with any and all that showed more than a passing interest. He was totally engaged and couldn't have been a better ambassador for the piano and classical music in general, just a really warm and very kind absolute gentleman. I learned the A flat polonaise that semester, inspired by his performance.
He was one of the first pianists to play the original 1913 version of Rachmaninoff's Sonata No.2 at a time when even the score was almost impossible to find. And he also played the big chordal cadenza in Rachmaninoff's 3rd concerto when it wasn't at all fashionable, and made it his own, perhaps paving the way for other pianists. Even Ashkenazy didn't switch to that big cadenza until much later.
His recordings of those two works remain landmarks, in my opinion, even more so than that of the Tchaikovsky No.1.
Yes, I agree, and, I have a personal favorite in his Chopin performances:
His legend lives on. He was truly one of a kind; I doubt there will ever be another like him. His life was like a fairy tale; a phenomenon that owed as much to the man, the person within, as the pianist. We were fortunate to be around while he was.
I wrote him a letter once!
Skipping practice tonight to come online and be with fellow pianists.
I lived in Dallas, and later between Dallas and Fort Worth, before moving to Sweden several years ago.
One anecdote that I heard was of him being recognized in a Barnes & Noble by a mother and her piano-student child. The story is that he spent about half-an-hour speaking with the little girl about playing the piano.
This shows the type of man he was and of course it radiates forth in his playing.
And his life and activities showed that he genuinely was aware of and placed into action the transformative power of great music for a person's life and the world.
One doesn't have to be a concert pianist champion of peace to do it, or give tremendous recitals for decades for charitable causes as Liszt did - one can for instance play for free at a nursing home. There are endless possibilities to serve others through music.
Van Cliburn was a fine role model for what a pianist can be and for what it really means to be a musician and to live out the proper role of music in the world!
Whenever a thread comes up about Van Cliburn, or his name comes up in a musical conversation, I am surprised at how many people say, "I met him," or "I had my picture taken with him", or "He wrote back to me." With Van Cliburn, he always had time to talk or communicate with anybody interested in piano. He had time, because he made time.
By fate he became an ambassador for classical piano in 1958. After all the hoopla died down, he could have stepped back and become just another touring professional. He didn't. He embraced his role as ambassador of the piano and classical music. It came across in his performance style - his warm and enveloping sound, and his personality on stage (in one concert I heard him perform, he played six encores). He was an active presence at the competitions which bore his name. There was never a line too long backstage, because he would make time to meet everyone and treat them graciously.
Russian audiences, especially in the Soviet era of dullness and grayness, could be very sensitive to the emotional bearing of a performer, and they picked up on Van Cliburn's warmth immediately. It's one reason he won the Tschaikovsky competition, and his emotional connection to people never failed him or us over the next 50 years on the public stage.
Van was one of those larger than life guys that I was lucky to meet in my piano youth at a small college in South Jersey back in the early 70's. I remember he landed in an adjacent field in a helicopter, never warmed up and just hastened to the hall, sat down and played a typically grand program. He met with all of the aspiring young pianists at a reception afterwards and chatted with any and all that showed more than a passing interest. He was totally engaged and couldn't have been a better ambassador for the piano and classical music in general, just a really warm and very kind absolute gentleman. I learned the A flat polonaise that semester, inspired by his performance.
Not just a great artist, but a great human being.
We were told that same story about him just yesterday before our weekly studio class.
He was such an inspiration-- when you see pictures of his ticker tape parade in NYC, it's hard to imagine that happening now. A beautiful soul and musical spirit. RIP, Mr. Cliburn.
It broke my heart to hear this. It's the end of an era. Cliburn was my favorite pianist, particularly for his Rachmaninoff... no one else has that incredible singing voice.
Best Rach 3 and 2nd sonata ever recorded.
"The eyes can mislead, the smile can lie, but the shoes always tell the truth."
American music critic B.H. Haggin forever maintained that Van Cliburn was an exceptional pianist who was maligned by US critics. It may indeed have been the generally unfavorable reception of US music critics which kept Cliburn away from the concert stage for much of his career.
Me and a very close friend of mine, a second mother of sorts, met over Van Cliburn's recording when we started talking about them. Last night for a time we talked about him again, both of us getting emotional.
Many things already been said, all I can say(never getting to see him live, probably because of my youth) I am thankful for the recordings I have heard.
I agree. This link is to a genuine landmark in music history -- Cliburn's performance of the Rachmaninoff 3rd in the 1958 finals of the Tchaikovsky competition. If you'd like to get the whole performance in a single link instead of 5 parts, you can find it here:
His playing in the Carnegie Hall performance shortly after his return to the US is better in many respects (especially in the first movement cadenza). But I'm not sure there has ever been a more musically perfect performance of the second movement than this Moscow recording. And the finale is truly hair-raising. The ovation after his performance is incredible – the high honor of rhythmic applause, Cliburn giving his first set of bouquets to Kondrashin to thank him and the orchestra for their superb accompaniment, and the pure joy on his face when an audience member presented him with a balalaika. I love the recordings of this great work by Volodos, Gilels, Andsnes and Sokolov, but this will always be the summit for me.
Van Cliburn inspired me to keep on with the piano at an age when I'd rather have been playing sandlot football. Fifty years later, I'm still at it. I first heard him live at Washington's Constitution Hall in 1962. It was my first encounter with Brahms Op. 118 No. 2, which he played to perfection. I heard him play the Tchaikovsky at Wolf Trap -- rocky at spots, but still majestic. I met him briefly when I attended the 8th Cliburn competition in 1989. He was warm and gracious and seemed geneuinely interested in hearing what others had to say (or in my case stammer). My last encounter was at a Kennedy Center benefit for the Humane Society. As he often did, he opened with Rachmaninoff's transcription of the Star Spangled Banner and some charming remarks about the importance of animal companionship and musical arts in a civilized society. He gave a truly awful rendition of the Brahms B minor Rhapsody, then played Chopin's 4th Ballade to near perfection. Go figure.
I've been listening to his recordings all day. The world is a better place because he passed through it.
