Van Cliburn
Van Cliburn (born Harvey Lavan Cliburn Jr. on July 12, 1934 in Shreveport, Louisiana; † February 27, 2013 in Fort Worth, Texas) was an American pianist.
Van Cliburn (1966)
Live
Van Cliburn was already playing the piano at the age of four. At the age of 13 he won a local competition in Texas, and the following year he won first prize at the "National Music Festival" in New York's Carnegie Hall. Until the age of 17 the "child prodigy" was taught by his mother Rildia Bee Cliburn. From 1951 he attended Rosina Lhévinne's courses at the Juilliard School.
In 1958, during the Cold War, the 23-year-old Texan won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and became world famous overnight. Photos of his triumphal procession in an open car through New York appeared in all the newspapers. From then on he gave guest performances in concert halls all over the world, devoted himself briefly to conducting and retired from concert life in 1978.
Van Cliburn played in public again for the first time in December 1987 at a White House dinner in honor of Mikhail Gorbachev. After that, he performed sporadically, including an appearance at the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia, celebrated concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and the opening of the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. The New York Times noted at the time, "A Celebrity Returns, Undimmed." ("A Celebrity Returns, Undimmed."). It went on to say, "It is reassuring ... to know after all these silent years that he is not deficient in the mysterious impulses that keep gifted artists active after the fires of youth burn low." ("It is reassuring ... to know after all these silent years that he is not deficient in those mysterious impulses that keep gifted artists active after the fires of youth burn low."). Cliburn later retired from the music business altogether.
His most famous recording was Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. The recording sold more than a million copies in 1961, which had never been achieved with any other work from the field of classical music until then.
"The young American from Texas had already proved in Moscow that what unites people is more essential than the dividing walls built by narrow-minded, power-hungry politicians who don't shy away from bloodbaths, when he played Tchaikovsky's B-flat minor concerto, the most Russian of all Russian music. [...] In Riga, people lined up from 2 a.m. to snag a concert ticket. 'This artist relieves us of misery, brings us light and freedom,' reported a letter from my hometown."
- Zenta Maurina
Since 1962, the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition has been held every four years in Fort Worth in his honor.
"There are only two irreplaceable things," Cliburn had said in one of his last interviews shortly before his death, "Great music and wonderful memories."
Discography (selection)
- 1962: Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1
- 1962: My Favorite Chopin (US:
Gold)
