Many years ago I attended a concert in Boston's Symphony Hall by the pianist Van Cliburn. I remember lines at the box office, people trying for last minute standing room, and risers of overflow seating on the stage, not far from the polished Steinway. This was not a crowd for Frank Sinatra, or Mick Jagger or Maria Callas (it was 1973.) But it was the crowd for a six foot four pianist from Kilgore, Texas with the funny name, Van Cliburn.
Henry Lavan Cliburn (1934-2013) studied piano with his mother (Rildia Bee O'Bryan Cliburn) and later on scholarship at Juilliard with the sainted Russian pedagogue Rosina Lhevine. In 1958 the young man traveled to Moscow to compete in the first International Tchaikovsky Competition, a propaganda tool of the Soviet government riding high from the successful launch of Sputnik.
It didn't take long for Cliburn, a tall innocent abroad, to mow down the Russian-Chinese-American-German-Bulgarian competition, totally captivate the Russian public and grab the gold medal. At the height of the Cold War, a young American went to Moscow and showed the Russians how Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky are meant to sound. So said the press.
Soviet premiere Niktia Khruschev told the jury, "If the boy from Texas played the best give him the prize." They did. Khruschev, acknowledging the cheering audience, kissed the young man and gave him to the adoring Russian public.
Nigel Cliff's new book Moscow Nights, How Van Cliburn and His Piano Changed the Cold War, could only be fiction if written by John Le Carre or Graham Greene. Instead, this is a book , not about music but about a musician and politics.
The "Long Texan" as Cliburn was called in Pravda, became adored by the Russian people. He got Elvis treatment in the Soviet Union, mobbed everywhere, photographed, mauled, kissed and cheered. This at a time when Khruschev was banging his shoe at the United Nations and declaring to the American press, "We will bury you."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPRNx9GaplY
Twenty years of worldwide tours followed. Cliburn's album My Favorite Chopin was the first "classical" recording to sell a million copies since Caruso. He was a regular at the White House, played to sold out houses in the States for the top fee, and was always welcome in the Soviet Union, no matter who was or was not banging a shoe.
The concert in Boston? I remember the cheering. I remember the very tall man who began the afternoon with the Star Spangled Banner and played for two hours. I remember reading in the papers the next day the most scathing, insulting reviews. He was a fraud. He was a charlatan who one a prize fifteen years earlier and stopped growing artistically at that moment. He was frozen at 23 when he was 43. On and on. Classical music eats its megastars. It happened to Cliburn, then Callas, then Pavarotti.
Cliburn faded away. He bought himself a magnificent home in Ft. Worth, moved in his mother, spent time going to the opera and playing one of his fourteen grand pianos. He was a gay man who lived with his parents until they died, and he kept his private life private. There were very few concerts after 1978. He endowed a piano competition his name, and died rich and seemingly happy at 79 in 2013.
In 1958, he was a shot in the arm to an America that was losing the space race to the Russians, and everyone was terrified of atomic war. Tchaikovsky, Chopin and Cliburn didn't cure ills, but those cheers in Russia were directed at an American from Texas who loved his mother. Moscow Nights provides important context to those frightening times, and the role of one shy fella who made music.
