Van Cliburn

Pianist Van Cliburn earned recognition as the foremost classical musician of his generation through peerless technical command and a singularly expressive romantic approach. Harvey Lavan Cliburn, Jr., entered the world in Shreveport, Louisiana, on July 12, 1934, and began piano lessons at three under the guidance of his mother, Rildia Bee O'Bryan Cliburn, an established pianist herself. In 1938 the family moved to Kilgore, Texas, where the child delivered his debut public recital and was immediately recognized as an extraordinary prodigy. He continued instruction with his mother, captured the Texas State Prize in 1947, and soon performed with the Houston Symphony Orchestra.

In 1951 he enrolled at the Juilliard School to work with Mme. Rosina Lhevinne, remaining until 1954, the year he received both the Roeder Award and the Levintritt Competition prize before making his first appearance as soloist with the New York Philharmonic.

Reviewers likened him to Rubinstein, Horowitz, and Paderewski, and Cliburn quickly attained widespread renown. He traveled to Moscow in 1958 for the First International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition; despite intense Cold War strains, his performances so impressed the jury that, after Premier Nikita Khrushchev granted explicit permission, they awarded him the gold medal. The triumph generated worldwide press coverage, and upon his return Cliburn was greeted with a New York City ticker-tape parade—the sole occasion a classical artist has received such an honor. His celebrity rivaled that of leading popular entertainers and film stars; in Philadelphia, admirers even tore the door from his limousine. Days later he appeared at a capacity-filled Carnegie Hall, where his accounts of Tchaikovsky’s First and Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concertos were captured by RCA and issued to immediate acclaim.

Cliburn’s global stature expanded throughout the following two decades as he presented thousands of recitals across continents and produced an extensive catalog of recordings. He declared a prolonged hiatus from the stage in 1978, performing publicly only once during the next ten years when he played at the White House for President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. Regular concert activity resumed by 1989, and in 1994 he undertook a 16-city national tour that introduced his artistry to fresh audiences. That same year he released his first new recordings in nearly two decades—Van Cliburn in Moscow, drawn from early-’70s performances with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under Kiril Kondrashin. In August 2012 it was disclosed that Cliburn had developed advanced bone cancer; he died at his Fort Worth, Texas, residence in February 2013 at the age of 78.