TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/070389/07038900.012

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 4KB | 66 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?'"