Van Cliburn wins first Tchaikovsky Competition

Historic media coverage of Van Cliburn winning the first Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958.
Credit: From "Van Cliburn Concert Pianist" a Sony/BMG documentary by Peter Rosen

Category:

Music

Tags:

• van
• cliburn
• piano
• tchaikovsky
• competition
• classical
• concert
• artist
• pianist
• rubinstein
• argerich

[ulsbolde89]

Music was the light in that dark period.

[nocturne163]

Van Cliburn is an amazing artist and person , great !)

[techrxgb]

@htews That's Dan Rather. 

[htews]

Is that narrator Sean Connery?

[annajeehee]

Yay ! Superb and the conductor -I should know -I am from a Juilliard alumna

[EpicureMammon]

I have the Living Stereo SACD remaster of Cliburn's playing this piece. It's actually vaguely unpleasant to listen to other renditions because of the passion with which Cliburn plays and that Tchaikovsky very likely wrote into the piece. Honestly, every other recording that I've heard is, I don't know, unfulfilling? It's interesting to read the history of Piano Concerto No. 1 because Tchaikovsky's own go-to pianist hated it, called it "unplayable" and had a few other choice criticisms for it.

[lsbrother]

ah yes - Van Cliburn saves the world from nuclear annihilation by playing his piano - wish we were all so talented

[Windwalker103]

How I wish that we could reach that same level of understanding, now

[dickshouse1]

Six years after this I sat next to Van at Gala Evening at the Metropolitan Opera. Joan Sutherland and Renata Tebaldi performing LaTraviata and LaBoheme's first acts respectively. Renata and Van were great friends and that night I became a friend of them both. I attended a post performance dinner at the Plaza Hotel hosted by Van for all the stars of the evening. That was the beginning of a wonderful friendship with all of them.

Special tickets and dinners with both of them for years.

[dmcII]

@mb7668 Yep. The rest as they say, is history...:)

[mb7668]

@dmcII I read the same basic story. The judges were afraid of the reaction of the audience if they dared give it to anyone else, but they were more afraid of the political consequences if they gave it to Cliburn. The rest is basically the same as you wrote. Kruschev asked if Cliburn was the best, and he was told "yes". And he said, "Then, give it to him."