Preview: Remembering Van Cliburn

TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23: 
ii. Andantino semplice; Prestissimo; Tempo I

Van Cliburn, piano; RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, Kiril Kondrashin, cond. RCA-Sony, recorded mostly live in New York City, May 30, 1958

by Ken

In the quick remembrance I posted following the death of Van Cliburn, I ventured: "The easy way to go would have been with the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto, the piece that became so identified with him when he rocketed to fame in 1958 (at age 23) with his grand-prize win at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow." Well, now that we're approaching the closer listen to Cliburn's art I promised then, we're getting around to the Tchaikovsky First Concerto, but most people would probably be expecting to hear one of the fistfuls-of-notes outer movements, and here we are with, instead, the slow movement. Oh, there's some fireworks in the movement's accelerated mid-section, but when I think of Cliburn, I always think first of the seemingly effortless, un-self-conscious beauty of the playing -- beautiful in sound and expression.

FOR CLIBURN'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN
FROM MOSCOW IN MAY 1958 . . .

Van Cliburn (1934-2013)

SCHUMANN (arr. Liszt): "Widmung" ("Dedication")

Van Cliburn plays the Liszt arrangement of Schumann's exhilarating song "Widmung" ("Dedication"), c1970.

by Ken

I want to put off doing a proper memorial to pianist Van Cliburn until I get the copy of RCA's newly released Van Cliburn: The Complete Album Collection which I ordered as soon as I saw that it exists, not realizing at the time that he had in fact just died.

The easy way to go would have been with the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto, the piece that became so identified with him when he rocketed to fame in 1958 (at age 23) with his grand-prize win at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Instead I thought we'd lead with a solo piece we heard played by Arthur Rubinstein in the November 2011 Sunday Classics post "And then came 'Widmung' " -- and then the following week played by the great American Romantic Earl Wild.

I think we hear here the basic Cliburn virtues: the beautiful, clean, effortlessly full sound and the wholesome extrovert temperament.

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