Van Cliburn

Van Cliburn (born July 12, 1934, Shreveport, Louisiana, U.S.—died February 27, 2013, Fort Worth, Texas) was an American pianist who achieved worldwide celebrity after winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958, the inaugural year for the event.

Cliburn began taking music lessons at the age of three from his mother, a concert pianist. He made his debut in 1947 with the Houston Symphony. The year that he graduated (1954) from the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, he won the Leventritt Foundation award, which afforded him debuts with five major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic. In 1958 he entered the International Tchaikovsky Competition. (At that time two categories were included: piano and violin.) During the early rounds, Cliburn endeared himself to the Soviets with his romantic playing style. The boyish American was embraced by local fans, who showered him with flowers and adulation and lobbied vocally for his victory after his performance in the final round. The judges, clearly moved by Cliburn’s mastery, nonetheless consulted Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev before awarding the prize to a foreigner. Khrushchev gave his consent freely, a gesture that helped thaw Soviet-American relations during the Cold War. Cliburn became a hero in the United States; he was the first musician to be honoured with a New York City ticker-tape parade following his return home. A recording of Cliburn’s interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, which he had played during the final round of competition (along with two other compositions), became the first classical album to reach platinum status.

Though Cliburn attempted to broaden his repertoire beyond the Romantics, his efforts met with mixed results, and Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 remained his signature piece. In 1978 Cliburn retreated from the stage to care for his ailing mother. When he returned in 1987, he soon tired of the rigours of his busy schedule and thereafter appeared only infrequently. Cliburn made his final public appearance in September 2012 at a concert marking the 50th anniversary of the Van Cliburn Foundation, which sponsored, among other activities, a prestigious quadrennial piano competition.