TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/070389/07038900.012

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 3.8 KB | 76 lines

                                                                                MUSIC, Page 72

The Return of Van Cliburn


He still plays wonderfully, but it's still Tchaikovsky


    I never abandoned the stage, I never left the stage, I only
took time," said Van Cliburn, who had not appeared in a public
concert or made a recording in nearly eleven years. It was 2:30
a.m., Cliburn's favored hour for interviews, since he usually
sleeps from 5 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon. As he talked
about his return to the stage that he had never left, he grew
increasingly adamant. "I never retired, and I don't think that
classical musicians do. It's unthinkable."

    The legendary pianist, who became a cold war hero by his
spectacular victory at the Tchaikovsky International Competition
in Moscow in 1958, reappeared at the Mann Music Center in
Philadelphia last week, and it all seemed true. He had not
retired. The previous eleven years melted away; indeed, the
previous 31 years melted away. The lanky 6-ft. 4-in. frame had
filled out a bit, and the wavy blond hair was now speckled with
gray, but when Cliburn, 54, once again sailed into the
Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, he demonstrated
that neither age nor idleness had diminished his extraordinary
technique. The thundering octaves still thundered; the
glittering passage-work still glittered. More important, he
played this mindlessly beautiful showpiece with a lifetime of
love.

    Understandably so. It was the first concerto he ever
learned, at age 12, under the watchful eye of his mother. It
won him first place in a statewide Texas competition. He played
it again to win the Leventritt Award in 1954 and again in
Moscow. After his ticker-tape parade up Broadway, his debut
recording became the first classical disk ever to reach sales
of $1 million, and it featured, of course, the dear old
Tchaikovsky.

    Even then, even among admiring critics, there were
grumblings about his reluctance to develop a broader
repertoire. "The young man will have to make up his mind," said
one, "whether he wants to be an artist or a flesh-and-blood
jukebox." Though Cliburn went on performing as many as 100
concerts a year for the next two decades (which did include some
Mozart, Chopin, Prokofiev), the authoritative New Grove
Dictionary has summed up his fading career by saying that "he
could not cope with the loss of freshness; his . . . playing
took on affectations . . . He stopped performing in 1978."

    He first thought about stopping in 1974, when his father
died, and then his manager, Sol Hurok. "I adored both of them,"
he says. "It was really quite a blow." And the virtuoso circuit
was exhausting. "The life of a musician is the most solitary
life. Sometimes I did find it very difficult." Cliburn never
made any sharp break, just gradually stopped accepting new
engagements, spent more time visiting friends (he lives with
his mother, Rildia Bee, now 92), composing piano pieces, buying
English antiques, presiding over the quadrennial piano
competition that bears his name, working out, enjoying himself.
"I am the furthest thing from a recluse," he says. And somehow
the first year off stretched into eleven. Then what inspired
his return to the stage? "I don't know," he says. "I was
invited. I think I'll just ease into the water."

    Still reliving the past, he plans to perform in Moscow on
July 2-3. And there is talk of new recordings. Pressed for
details, Cliburn shuts off the questions by turning to poetry.
"I have been writing poetry," he says. "Oh, listen, from the
time I was 14, I've loved poetry. Lord Byron is a great
favorite of mine. `Who can curiously behold/ The smoothness and
the sheen of beauty's cheek,/ Nor feel the heart can never all
grow old?'"