We are all a bit disappointed, I mean can you imagine how much more we could've heard from him.....

I just don't agree with bashing him.

Michael Sayers:

Thank you for your kind, inciteful, and most of all respectful words.

Enclosed for you and all to read is John von Rhein's Van Cliburn obituary article. He is the classical music critic for the Chicago Tribune, and he and I have conferred over the last two months on my news story.

John has been with the Tribune for over 32 years, which makes him the senior classical music critic in the nation. And, for the record, I just read this about two hours ago for the first time.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-...erican-pianists

let's hope your other keyboard exhibits more decorum than the one you are using here.

Louis - The article seems accurate and fair. What's your point???

Just watched the 3rd movement of Cliburn's Tchaikovsky from Russia, Kondrashin conducting.



Incredible. Having been raised with Argerich's quicksilver tempos, at first Cliburn felt a mite bit slow, but I quickly adjusted. Both of these sovereign musicians confront this ball-busting concerto head-on, and take no prisoners.

I am too young to have heard Cliburn live, but he must have been an absolute treasure, good night dearest.

He doesn't answer stuff like that.

Check out his Schumann threads. They're a treat. (His more famous threads are also a treat in their own way, I suppose.)

Michael: You're giving him way too much of a break.

Cliburn was a fantastic musician, pianist, and ambassador for music. There have been a lot of unfair complaints about him being tossed around in this thread, but his is a legacy which will outlast the naysayers...who are increasingly losing credibility around here.

carey:

Thank you for your comments. Enclosed for your perusal are the combined reviews of Anthony Tommsasni, NY Times Senior Classical Music Critic, and John von Rein, the Classical Music Critic for the Chicago Tribune.

Some of us can read between the lines and some of us cannot. You do not live in the world of professional musical performance, and they do.

Thanks to my late piano teacher, I was taught in the early 1970's about the technical aspects of the classical music business. And, unfortunately, this is what most piano majors were not.

Now, practically every music major in the nation at any accredited college music school is encouraged (by their faculty advisor) to have a second minor in a non-music field such as business or accounting.

Why did Clibrun try to re-invigorate his career with the "Moscow Symphony Orchestra?" Because anyone with knowledge of the "business" knows that they are basically a pick-up band of contract musicians. And also, no American conductor would have anything to do with him based on numerous prior bad acts of sudden cancellation and erratic behavior.

What is the difference, and what has always been the point? The point is, and should always be, is that one learns their music, shows up on time for rehearsal, and then busts their rear end to make great beautiful music. When he was young and his mother was still alive, that was the essence of Van Cliburn. Later on in life, that is unfortunately what he was not.

(Disorganized? When you are a millionaire, you pay people to keep you organized!)

Thank God, the same distorted situation cannot be said about most great classical pianists before, during, or after him. Base your career on that reality and not on the Cliburn myth of the last thirty years that was not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/arts/music/van-cliburn-pianist-dies-at-78.html

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-...erican-pianists

BTW, how come you disappeared on those threads you started about the Schumann piece, when you saw that you were just mistaken about a note that you thought wasn't being played and which you had made such a big thing about?

Not to mention about being mistaken on what such-and-such-book said about CPE Bach?

Not to mention getting the meaning of that Czerny quote completely backwards?

You have a long way to go before you can talk about "reading between the lines." It would be a good idea first to be able to hear and read just what's there.

To those who have an ax to grind, please grind it somewhere else.

Why can't he just shut up and let Cliburn rest in peace? Has he no respect, no humanity or even humility?

(I say "he" because he never responds to me. Don't blame him, though)

And yes. Cliburn was disorganized. I have direct sources and I know stories about him flying out to do a certain concerto only to have have mixed up concertos and prepared the wrong one. Stuff like that. So what? The man is gone. Appreciate what he has done, which is in incredible value to our declining society, and let the man rest in peace.

He seems to be saying that because he practices for 5 hours in the morning, what he does it of better value than Cliburn, who practiced after midnight. It's hilarious.

Of course, I too wish he kept playing but he was simply burnt out. Or had other reasons, who are WE to place blame here? Everyone that knew him always said he was an amazing human being most of all, and that should be enough for us to quit speaking ill on his account.

Still one of my favorite albums of anybody, and I enjoyed telling him ("I still haven't gotten over 'My Favorite Chopin'") and seeing his delight. Love the portrait too.

+1. Had it on LP and bought it as soon as it was released as a CD.

Cool!!
But I wonder what happened to the LP!

(Still have mine!)

Since it seems thankfully we've gotten back to honoring the memory of Van Cliburn....how about this great Amazon review of "My Favorite Brahms," by someone who goes by the handle "Brahms Scholar"; whoever he may be, I assume he won't mind my quoting it. Among other things, to me it captures concisely what was great about Cliburn's playing at its best.

(BTW the 'dots' are the writer's, except the real long ones.)


"Resting...now moving forward...then curling in on itself like a wave. Lightness...darkness...flowing...falling, then stopping to look down into the depths where it will finally rest, yet defiantly turning upward toward the light again.

..........This music shines forth a penetrating consciousness, only to be consumed by the quiet tranquility of an endless sleep. One hears this in the Capriccio in G Minor as well as many other pieces that begin assertively, but then suddenly grow into a deep yearning for rest.

I can't say enough good things about this CD. If this had been a complete collection of the late piano pieces, I would have to consider this a National Treasure. As I write these words I am listening to the Intermezzo in A, Op. 118 on track 7. What a wonderful way to say goodbye to the piano. What a wonderful way to say goodbye to life itself; since he was to give his life back to the universe from whence it came shortly after these pieces were composed.

When everything has been said and done. When your hopes and dreams of finding the perfect love have been laid to rest, as his must have, time becomes meaningless; and all that you have become and hope to be rests in perfect stillness and repose. This is the feeling one gets when listening to these works. It is so wonderful to see that Van Cliburn, like a true Romantic, understands this and makes no effort to crash around in these pieces in order to create a needless and unnecessary sense of excitement. All of the music here is handled with the utmost sensitivity and delicacy.........
I can't listen to this CD without getting a lump in my throat. This music is sure to stir up long forgotten emotions within you too!"

I have a CD of him playing the Barber piano sonata, Mozart sonata in C major K.330, and some various Debussy pieces. Absolutely brilliant.

It hurt me terribly and personally to read such negative comments about Mr. Cliburn. I don't believe in knocking someone who might be down and out.

I believe Mr. Cliburn did suffer extreme burn-out and this affected him for the rest of his life. All he ever wanted to do was please people with his best possible performance. He went through a deep depression after his mother died and perhaps never got over it. Anyone who has ever suffered from depression knows that it can play havoc with one's mind and also one's physical abilities. And it is almost impossible to recover from.

He was a shy and gentle person and, as so often happens, he was crushed by the demands made upon him. Just watching that clip of his playing, so young and so full of still greater promise, it brought tears to my eyes.

Rest in peace, dear soul. And please, please let him do so.
Kathleen

Obama mourns Cliburn's passing:

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/03/obama-on-van-cliburn-158325.html

My two cents:

http://hankdrake.blogspot.com/2013/02/in-memory-van-cliburn.html

Hank -- thanks for posting it. Need I say, "Two cents" is an extremely modest valuation.

I wish that everyone who looks at this thread will read your piece.

It takes restraint for me not to copy/paste the entire text. Let me know if you'd like me to do that. For now I'll just show this, which for your sake I was a little sorry to see:


I did have the pleasure of hearing him twice, including once when I had the chance to speak with him afterwards, well before having the better chances in Fort Worth which were such a dream come true.

Well more than two cents, many thanks.

I have a quadrophonic 8-track cassette of him playing the Tchaikovsky.

That goes back in time...

What it takes me back to is the Beavis and Butt-head episode where they thought Van Driessen asked them to "watch" his "irreplaceable collection of 8-track tapes" -- and so they try to hammer them into the VCR player, to "watch" them.

I think 8-track had about 16 minutes of fame. I never had it, and I'm not sure if anybody I knew did. I've wondered what was good about it, and, if there really was something to it, why it failed so quickly. But I digress.

What was good: It was portable. You couldn't play a record in your car.

Short-lived? They lasted until a smaller, better format came out.

Do you mean cassettes?
If so, weren't they around before 8-track? I had a cassette player-recorder in the mid-'60's, and I didn't think 8-tracks came out (or at least weren't widespread) till later.
Do you mean CD's? I thought 8-track bit the dust well before CD arrived.

I never saw a cassette until the mid-70's. I suppose you folks on the coasts had to pay the development costs before it trickled down to us poor folk in the mid-west. Radio Shack was still selling 8 track cassette recorders in 1982. I think "quadrophonic" only lasted a couple of days, though.

Old guys, Mark and Damon.

When I was growing up I momentarily wondered how my mum's Jefferson Airplane, Doors and Blues Project LPs would fit into the CD player.

This did not go over very well.

Being old means we had a chance to see the Jefferson Airplane in their infancy.
(I did!)

A concert pianist's life is not judged solely by how many concerts he played, whether he showed up on time, what performance standards he maintained, whether he overcharged his audience, and at what age he retired from the stage. If that were the case, Franz Liszt, who performed on the concert stage for only a few years and then retired to play only charity concerts, would be judged a terrible failure.

You can judge a pianist's career by those standards, but the totality of a man's life is judged on much broader terms, particularly by the manner in which he affected people. At his best, Van Cliburn's playing touched people with its warmth and sincerity, and these qualities followed him throughout his life. These are the qualities people remember when they think of him, and I guess as many or more people met him and think of him for these qualities than ever heard him perform on the stage. People will remember Van Cliburn long after they have forgotten other pianists who fit Louis's more limited criteria for success as a pianist.