Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story-How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War by Nigel Cliff
Authors: Nigel Cliff
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regularized to suit American tastes, which to Van was second nature. Since bravura pieces were easyfor him, she started him with Mozart’s Sonata in E-flat Major and Bach’s Partita in E Minor.“Very talented, quick, not very accurate,” she noted on a page headed “Cliburn, Harvey” in one of the little ring binders she used in class. They moved on to Chopin, Liszt, and Beethoven; and then Hindemith, Schumann, and Prokofiev. Like all the best students, Van had arrived a fully formed musician, and her interventions were modest, but he responded so strongly and felt the music so deeply that she began to look forward to their Friday 11:00 a.m. sessionswith great joy. One day she suggested a different approach to a Chopin piece, and he got up and paced the room.“It’s too beautiful,” he said. “I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it.”
The semesters went by, each seeming longer than it was because of the work packed in, the beginnings and endings marked by the increasingly raucous parties Jimmy Mathis threw at the fifteen-room apartment at West Seventy-Second Street and Riverside Drive that he shared with some other students. Van was always in the middle of the crush, playing the piano with a bevy of women singing along, chain-smoking now between pieces. It was hard not to like the gangly, goofy kid, even when he began to rack up prizes. In April 1952 it was the G. B. Dealey Memorial Award, named after a publisher of the Dallas Morning News , whichearned him three hundred dollars, a performance with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and a solo recital. June of that year brought the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Award and a thousand dollars, a handy sum that paid off some of his mounting debts, as did asix-hundred-dollar Juilliard grant the following spring. Money was still short, and when he filled in the school’s Placement Bureau form, he offered himself for tuition at five dollars an hour and recitals at three hundred dollars “or less,” though he drew the line at playing hotels, nightclubs, or resorts. On the back page, Rosina added her endorsement:
Harvey Levan [ sic ] (“Van”) Cliburn possesses a most outstanding talent. He is a born virtuoso with dash and sweep which carry away the listener. In addition, he has the unusualcombination of virtuosity with a rare, innate sensitivity for music . . .
Mr. Cliburn has excellent stage presence and, to my mind, if he continues to work as sincerely as he does now he will be one of the most promising young pianists of the day.
Suddenly it was the end of the year. Late as usual, Van rushed back to the Spicers’ with one classmate to help him pack and another to stand outside holding a cab that would take him to the airport. He threw his things helter-skelter into a suitcase and jumped on it until it closed. Then he ran out with the bulging bag in one hand, a briefcase stuffed with music in the other, and his spare pair of shoes sticking out of his coat pockets.
ROSINA’S CLASS was convinced it ran Juilliard, or at least the piano department, but within it, sudden fierce rivalries bubbled up and soured the air. In Van’s second year, an ambitious seventeen-year-old with a crew cut named Daniel Pollack joined as a full scholarship student:“Excellent talent,” Rosina had noted at his entrance examination. Pollack was six months younger than Van, was nearly as tall at six foot two, and the year before arriving had won an appearance with his hometown orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He was bent on proving himself, and since both his parents had been born in Russia, he had a stronger claim on its heritage than Van. With their different characters, it was apparent to the class that the two did not warm to each other.
The new school year also brought the annual competition to perform as soloist with the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra. To Van and Rosina’s glee, the prize piece was announced as Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1, and they worked on it
The semesters went by, each seeming longer than it was because of the work packed in, the beginnings and endings marked by the increasingly raucous parties Jimmy Mathis threw at the fifteen-room apartment at West Seventy-Second Street and Riverside Drive that he shared with some other students. Van was always in the middle of the crush, playing the piano with a bevy of women singing along, chain-smoking now between pieces. It was hard not to like the gangly, goofy kid, even when he began to rack up prizes. In April 1952 it was the G. B. Dealey Memorial Award, named after a publisher of the Dallas Morning News , whichearned him three hundred dollars, a performance with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and a solo recital. June of that year brought the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Award and a thousand dollars, a handy sum that paid off some of his mounting debts, as did asix-hundred-dollar Juilliard grant the following spring. Money was still short, and when he filled in the school’s Placement Bureau form, he offered himself for tuition at five dollars an hour and recitals at three hundred dollars “or less,” though he drew the line at playing hotels, nightclubs, or resorts. On the back page, Rosina added her endorsement:
Harvey Levan [ sic ] (“Van”) Cliburn possesses a most outstanding talent. He is a born virtuoso with dash and sweep which carry away the listener. In addition, he has the unusualcombination of virtuosity with a rare, innate sensitivity for music . . .
Mr. Cliburn has excellent stage presence and, to my mind, if he continues to work as sincerely as he does now he will be one of the most promising young pianists of the day.
Suddenly it was the end of the year. Late as usual, Van rushed back to the Spicers’ with one classmate to help him pack and another to stand outside holding a cab that would take him to the airport. He threw his things helter-skelter into a suitcase and jumped on it until it closed. Then he ran out with the bulging bag in one hand, a briefcase stuffed with music in the other, and his spare pair of shoes sticking out of his coat pockets.
ROSINA’S CLASS was convinced it ran Juilliard, or at least the piano department, but within it, sudden fierce rivalries bubbled up and soured the air. In Van’s second year, an ambitious seventeen-year-old with a crew cut named Daniel Pollack joined as a full scholarship student:“Excellent talent,” Rosina had noted at his entrance examination. Pollack was six months younger than Van, was nearly as tall at six foot two, and the year before arriving had won an appearance with his hometown orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He was bent on proving himself, and since both his parents had been born in Russia, he had a stronger claim on its heritage than Van. With their different characters, it was apparent to the class that the two did not warm to each other.
The new school year also brought the annual competition to perform as soloist with the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra. To Van and Rosina’s glee, the prize piece was announced as Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1, and they worked on it
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