Thirty years ago, a shy, relatively obscure young pianist from Texas stunned the world by acing the Soviets at their own game, winning the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow at the height of the Cold War.
Ten years ago, this same artist-by then a cosmopolitan figure who occupied 14 rooms of the Salisbury Hotel in New York and paid for it with some of the biggest fees ever lavished on a classical musician-quit the concert stage without a hint as to when he might return.
Ever since, music lovers and gossip columnists have speculated whether Van Cliburn-America`s first superstar of the piano-would ever again perform in public.
The speculation has ended. Cliburn, at 53 apparently refreshed and rejuvenated, has launched his comeback much as he did his international career a generation ago-making front-page headlines around the world.
Few others could have coaxed tears from Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev by playing a few well-chosen melodies at the keyboard, as Ronald and Nancy Reagan and a slew of other notables looked on admiringly.
”Yes, it was a very warm and pleasant experience,” says Cliburn, modestly, of his performance at a White House reception last December honoring the Gorbachevs` visit to America. Though the event quickly set in motion one of the biggest musical comebacks in years-with Cliburn recently announcing that he will return to the Soviet Union to perform in May-the pianist describes the event in a calm, relaxed manner that seems to typify his frame of mind these days.
”The General-Secretary (Gorbachev) was exceedingly hospitable and gracious, and when I came out to bow, he flashed me a really dazzling smile. He was just very kind.
”Mrs. Gorbachev was very sweet, too.”
By all accounts, the feelings were mutual. In fact, if the rest of Cliburn`s re-emergence goes as well, he stands an excellent chance of quickly regaining international prominence. For after the pianist completed his classical selections, Mrs. Gorbachev kissed him and said, ”What a pity there is no orchestra, because if we did (have an orchestra present), you could play Tchaikovsky,” referring to Tchaikovsky`s First Piano Concerto, Cliburn`s calling-card piece in 1958.
Taking his cue, Cliburn dashed back to the piano, saying, ”With your help, we can do something.”
And before Cliburn had unrolled more than an arpeggio or two, the Gorbachevs had joined him singing-in Russian-the beloved Soviet song ”Moscow Nights,” with the room rapidly dissolving to tears.
The story made most of the TV news shows and newspapers, proving that despite his long absence, Cliburn has not lost his ability to make the world sit up and take notice.
”The idea (to play `Moscow Nights`) was right off the top of my head,”
says Cliburn, still a bit surprised and obviously delighted with the results. ”I had already played a regular recital of classical pieces, and then everyone got to talking, and everything became really very, very intimate.
”So when Mrs. Gorbachev asked me to play something else, I didn`t feel that anything else classical would be appropriate, and I thought of this song, `Moscow Nights.` I had learned the song back in 1958 when I was first in the Soviet Union, and I had known the composer.
”So I just started singing and playing it. It`s a very, very important song to the Russians, you know. They really love it; it`s a very meaningful song, and it`s not just about Moscow but all the countryside.
”After I got back to the hotel that night, though, I thought, `Goodness, this is terrible,` because I was sorry that there had been nothing on television of my playing of classical music, only this little song!”
Cliburn, however, is about to dramatically rectify that situation. This weekend, he will have appeared on national TV (at 9 p.m. Saturday in Chicago on Ch. 5) playing Schumann`s ”Widmung” (”Dedication”) in a special about the opening of the Bob Hope Cultural Center in Palm Desert, Calif.
And in May, he likely will become the talk of the music world again when he returns to his fans in the Soviet Union, performing-what else?-the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto with the New York Philharmonic.
But why now? After 10 years of relative seclusion, in which Cliburn rarely even granted interviews, why has he finally decided to risk a comeback? In part, it has to do with chance, says Cliburn, who two years ago moved from Manhattan to one of the larger mansions in Ft. Worth with his mother, 91. ”Last year, I was just called by the White House,” says Cliburn, ”and they said, `Would you come and play for the Gorbachevs?` ”
When he sat down at the piano in the East Room of the White House, Cliburn saw in the audience ”Mr. and Mrs. Zubin Mehta (music director of the New York Philharmonic) and Mr. and Mrs. Mstislav Rostropovich (music director of the National Philharmonic), and they all were saying that I really should return to the stage.
”The Mehtas were saying that I should definitely play with the New York Philharmonic in New York, but also in Moscow and Leningrad.
”You know, I`ve often called my period away from the stage an
`intermission` in my career. And I`ve enjoyed it so much. It`s a very comfortable feeling to be able to go to concerts and to hear your friends and to enjoy the opera. I feel that`s important.
”In fact, I predicted it for myself many years ago. I had always told my friends that I was going to have a little intermission.
”But performing is also important. Now it was simply time to get back to it.
”Someone recently asked me, `Do you feel like you have been away?` Yet I don`t feel that I have been away at all. Because when you have performed as much as I have, and performed consistently, the memory is so ingrained that it feels like it was the day before.”
Despite Cliburn`s obvious need to return to the stage, as well as the happy coincidences that have made it possible, it must be noted that he could hardly have picked his moment better.
The image of the still boyish-looking pianist embracing Gorbachev recalls the image of a younger, somewhat lankier Cliburn embracing Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev after the Tchaikovsky triumph in 1958, and that picture surely lingers in the mind of anyone who lived through the chill of the Cold War. World leaders come and go, Cliburn`s return seems to say, but the pianist endures, a perpetual symbol of American culture brushing up against the Soviets`.
Further, it was the Russian audience that first went wild for Cliburn, and the reunion is likely to be enthusiastic and emotional.
All of this will give Cliburn`s reception an intensity few pianists are privileged to enjoy, comeback or not.
Few observers would argue, however, that Cliburn doesn`t deserve the attention. No one did more in the `50s and `60s to prove to the rest of the world-and to ourselves-that American artists can stand comparison to the best anywhere.
When Cliburn left the stage in 1978, it was after 20 years as America`s most famous pianist and, beyond that, a kind of national cultural symbol. The toll had begun to show.
”Of all the Americans of his generation,” wrote Harold C. Schoenberg in ”The Great Pianists,” ”Cliburn was able to produce the most sensuous of sounds-rich, never percussive, a real piano sound that reminded old-timers of the great romantic pianists of the past.
”(But) Cliburn retired in the mid-1970s. Perhaps he never learned how to handle his sudden fame. Perhaps he was torn two ways. On the one hand, he had such natural gifts that he could have played any repertoire, could have developed into a supreme artist.
”On the other, he was constantly asked to repeat his competition concertos-the Tchaikovsky B-flat minor and the Rachmaninoff Third-and he acceded.
”Toward the end, his performances sounded perfunctory,” added Schonberg, echoing the sentiments of contemporary reviewers, who said Cliburn`s performances had become exaggerated. ”Could he have felt a certain unhappiness with himself? Whatever the reason, one of the most brilliant talents in American pianism called it quits.”
In so doing, however, Cliburn placed himself in select company. No less a pianist than Vladimir Horowitz, for instance, retired twice from the stage
(both times for several years), having reached psychological (as well as physical) crises that required resolution away from the spotlight. Horowitz`s returns were greeted enthusiastically by the musical world, and in both cases he returned as an artist with deeper statements to make.
As Cliburn is quick to point out, his retirement from the stage didn`t for a moment keep him away from music. During those years, he was the perpetual concertgoer and, perhaps more important, continued to be the guiding spiritual force behind the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Ft. Worth, which has given careers to Radu Lupu, Cristina Ortiz and other gifted young pianists.
Today, the key issue is what Cliburn will sound like and which course the mature phase of his career will take. If he can rekindle a fraction of the excitement of the early years, he will make a considerable impact, for few American pianists equalled the dynamism of Cliburn at his peak.
”Van Cliburn is a phenomenal player,” wrote Emil Gilels, a judge at the Tchaikovsky contest of `58. ”Of the works he played in all three parts of the contest, I should like to draw particular attention to his consummate performance of the A minor etude of Chopin, the Twelfth Hungarian Rhapsody of Liszt, the Fugue of a Sonata by Samuel Barber and his interpretation, especially astonishing to all, of the Third Concerto of Rachmaninoff, a work in which the rare talent of Cliburn unfolded to full breadth and power.
”His inborn artistry and subtle musicianship ennoble all that he plays. His victory at such a difficult contest may be truly termed brilliant.”
Such playing seduced audiences at the Moscow Conservatory, where the contest was held, and, at the same time, made political waves.
”A few years ago, he would not have been allowed to go to Russia, such was the climate of opinion and the general relationship of the two
countries,” said U.S. impresario Patrick Hayes in a national radio broadcast shortly after Cliburn`s triumph.
”If someone else had won this time, and Van Cliburn should win a year or two from now, it would not be quite the same in dramatic impact.
”Just now, early in 1958, only several weeks after the signing of the American-Soviet Exchange Program, Van Cliburn got there first, with the most- the most talent and experience and training, the most hair, the most height.
”The news (that Cliburn won) hit the U.S. with the force of another Sputnik announcement. Even more so-the effect was one of disbelief, of shock and surprise.”
Cliburn returned to the United States like a conquering hero, the only pianist to be given a ticker tape parade in Manhattan, a box-office hit and critical success virtually everywhere he played.
Performing at Grant Park in Chicago in the summer of `58 (the park had booked him for a pittance before his victory, and Cliburn made good on his commitment), he drew more than 55,000 people and rave reviews.
”The tall young Texan gave a stunning demonstration of at least one thing American not vetoed by the Russians,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in The Tribune. ”This was big, brilliant, beautiful playing. Playing in the grand manner, with sweep and fire and style.
”And something more, too. Even now, the imprint of something personal.” Yet, for all his gifts as a pianist, the last thing Cliburn wanted was the hysterical adulation he received. If he was a cultural hero, he was a reluctant one.
”I never dreamed I would get all the attention that I did,” says Cliburn today. ”And I really never thought of myself as a cultural hero.
”In fact, my main desire in going to the Soviet Union in 1958,”
explains Cliburn in a simple and touching remembrance, ”was to see the church of St. Basil.
”When I was 5 years old, my parents gave me a child`s picture history book of the world at Christmastime.
”It had a picture of St. Basil, and I asked my parents, `Would you please take me there?` And I never lost sight of that desire-I always wanted to see the church of St. Basil.
”And that I achieved the first night upon my arrival for the contest. I had a very sweet lady from the Ministry of Culture who met me, and I said,
`Would it be at all possible to go into the city?`
”And she said, `By all means.`
”So I said, `Would it be too difficult to go and see the Church of St. Basil?`
”She said, `Immediately.`
”And that indelible impression was always with me.”
Despite Cliburn`s personal goals at the Tchaikovsky contest, a legend quickly gathered around him, and with it many myths. Though some observers assumed Cliburn was a one-hit artist with spectacularly lucky timing, he was, in fact, a first-rate, contest-winning performer-and steeped in Russian culture-long before he set foot in Moscow.
Born Harvey Lavan Cliburn, Jr. in Shreveport, La., Van (as he was called) and his family moved to Kilgore, Tex., when he was 6. From the first time he touched a piano at age 3, through his prodigy years as a rising young artist in Texas, to the day he entered the Juilliard School in 1951, he studied with his mother, the former concert pianist Rildia Bee O`Bryan.
”She was my pianistic inspiration,” says Cliburn. ”She was an exponent of the Russian school of piano playing, because she was a student of Arthur Friedheim`s, who was born in St. Petersburg and was a pupil of Liszt`s. So I was exposed from the time I was born to the Russian school of piano playing.
”My mother has been my most important and very difficult critic, and a very wise critic. She has been really wonderful throughout my career.
”She and my father (an oil company executive who died in 1974) were such great auxiliaries for me, I cannot begin to describe what they have done for me.”
At Juilliard, Cliburn studied with Rosina Lhevinne, the great, Kiev-born pianist, and won contests as if it were practically a pastime. The laurels included the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Award; the Juilliard Concerto Contest; the Frank Damrosch scholarship; and the Levintritt Foundation Award. Perhaps it was this rock-solid foundation that kept him going as long as he did, despite the pressures of being perpetually in the limelight, and has enabled him to move toward center-stage again.
For now, Cliburn takes comfort in his life in Ft. Worth-”coming home to Texas was providential,” he says, ”because the Lord just dropped this house in our laps”-and he feels ”much excitement” at the prospect of resuming his performing career.
As for being once again a culture hero or, at least, a symbol of `80s-style glasnost, Cliburn gracefully takes a pass.
”Nope, there`s no way I`m figuring into glasnost,” he says, ever the reluctant star. ”I just feel that people are people, that humanity is humanity, and that classical music, and particularly the appreciation that the world has for Russian classical music, can help the countries communicate.
”That`s the most normal thing in the world, and that`s all that I hope for.”
PERFORMING FOR PRESIDENTS Cliburn, who has spent much of his career in the international spotlight, has played the piano for nearly every U.S. president since Truman.
Here are his recollections:
HARRY S TRUMAN
I played for him not when he was president, but on several occasions in Kansas City. He played serious piano-he was an ardent and accomplished amateur pianist.
In fact, I heard him play Mozart and some Beethoven. He was very devoted to the classic repertoire.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
I played for him when I returned to the U.S. from the Tchaikovsky contest. He was a wonderful person.
RICHARD NIXON
I played the piano for him several times. He`s a great lover of classical music.
JIMMY CARTER
Mr. and Mrs. Carter gave me the first reception in the new governor`s mansion in Georgia. They were very gracious and hospitable to me, and, as a matter of fact, when I played my recital there in Atlanta, Mr. Carter said to me, ”If you play an encore, would you mind playing an Etude Tableaux of Rachmaninoff?”
He knows music.
RONALD REAGAN
Mr. Reagan loves classical music. He has an extensive library, and he and Mrs. Reagan are great devotees of the art.
