Cliburn History: How Did It All Begin?
—Jan Farrington
The 16th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition starts on June 2.
By now, the Van Cliburn Foundation knows how to do this. But in 1958, when the notion of an international piano competition was just an idea floated at a gathering of the National Guild of Piano Teachers, who would have envisioned this sort of world-wide attention, this level of musical brilliance and sophistication in a dusty city that used to be called “Cowtown”?
It happened, in part, because a long, tall young Texan named Van Cliburn had gone to Moscow that year, wowed the Russian audience, and won gold in the very first Tchaikovsky Competition. His win (legend has it that competition officials asked Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev if he’d permit them to award first prize to an American. “Is he the best?” Khrushchev asked. “Yes.” “Then give it to him!”) made “Van” an international celebrity.
Ticker tape parades and huge crowds followed. Cliburn appeared on the cover of Time magazine, recorded with top orchestras, and was in great demand as a concert performer. Pretty strong stuff for a recent Juilliard student with a mop of notoriously curly hair and a shy smile.
And so, the competition began. After a time, Van Cliburn bought a house in Fort Worth—home base for most of the next half century, until his death in 2013.
He never served as a juror for the competition, but was a guiding force, mentor, host—and could be a forceful “arbiter” of the rules of the game. At least once, when social bigwigs tried to be seated during a late-round performance—and loudly argued with the usher in the lobby, who had strict instructions NOT to do any such thing—Van came out to intervene. In the smoothest, most gracious way, he let the latecomers know that the integrity of the performance came first, and always. They didn’t get in.
The competition was held every three years from 1962 into the early ‘70s, but eventually switched to the four-year “quadrennial” schedule. From the start, the Van Cliburn was known for two things that stood out from other such events: first, that competitors were housed with “host families” and welcomed by them and other social gatherings into the community; and secondly, that the Van Cliburn Foundation offered not just a prize, but several years of artistic management and mentoring, concert bookings around the globe, and much more.
It was, from the start, more than just a medal.
