Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story-How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War (58 page)

Van and Rildia Bee visit with John F. Kennedy in the White House’s Blue Room, May 1963.
(Kennedy Library)

Van with President and Mrs. Nixon after playing for an American and Soviet audience at the Moscow residence of the U.S. ambassador, May 1972.
(Nixon Library)

As President Ronald Reagan looks on, Van greets General Secretary Gorbachev and Raisa Gorbachev after playing in the East Room of the White House during the December 1987 summit.
(Reagan Library)

Van reacts with mock horror as Raisa Gorbachev insists he play Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto (without orchestra) at the 1987 summit.
(AP)

President George W. Bush presents Van with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a July 2003 ceremony at the White House.
(Cliburn Foundation)

Van meets with President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin after receiving the Order of Friendship in September 2004.
(AP)

Van with President Barack Obama after receiving the National Medal of Arts in March 2011.
(Getty)

Acknowledgments

THIS BOOK
, my fourth, follows three that accidentally regressed from the nineteenth century to the fifteenth and thirteenth centuries. The greatest reward of this novel up-to-dateness has been the opportunity to meet and talk with many people who were directly involved in the story. The greatest sadness was that several died during my work—in the cases of Susan Tilley, Jeaneane Dowis, and Viktor Sukhodrev, as I was arranging interviews. My biggest regret is that I never met Van Cliburn, for the simple reason that his death set me on the path to exploring his life, with amazement that I hadn’t heard his full story before and determination to do what I could to ensure that it didn’t fade away. Perhaps I never would have met Van: ever private in that impossibly gregarious way of his, he was famously reluctant to open up to writers and displeased with the results when he did. Some of his friends stood by his lifelong policy of discretion; some found it cathartic finally to be able to talk. In telling the story that the record presented to me with much feeling and some necessary distance, I hope I have done justice to the memory of a man who was deeply and widely loved.

At the Cliburn Foundation, Maggie Estes and Jacques Marquis started me off in the right direction and subsequently showed me many kindnesses. Richard Rodzinski, the Cliburn’s former president, was an early pivot of my research. Sergei Khrushchev gave me valuable leads and discussed many points in detail. Liu Shikun spent the better part of two days telling me his life story. Aschen Mikoyan shared her family memories in Moscow’s Gorky Park and corresponded with me on many matters. Ella and Irina Vlassenko
and their family showed me true Georgian hospitality at their bright green dacha. Gary and Naomi Graffman were a fount of flavored vodka, food, and anecdotes in New York. Vladimir and Dody (Thorunn) Ashkenazy confided in me in the very Cold War setting of the backseat of a limo in a dark parking lot.

In the United States, vital insights came from Alann Sampson (who also introduced me to Tommy Smith), Mary Lou Falcone, Harriet Wingreen, Peter Rosen, John Giordano, Ed Wierzbowski, Shield-Collins “Buddy” Bray, Gino Francesconi, Alexander Shtarkman, Anne Walker, Kaye Buck McDermott, and, at Juilliard, Joseph Polisi, Veda Kaplinsky, Martin Canin, Howard Aibel, and Robert White.

In Russia, Sergei Dorensky, Alexander Sokolov, Elena Dolinskaya, Yury Evgrafov, Margarita Karatygina, Maria Lvova, Jeff Sexton, Maria Holkina, Elena Cheremynch, Julia Miansarov, and Natalia Klimova provided more illumination and guidance. Elsewhere in Europe, I was fortunate to talk and correspond with Norman Shetler, Tamás Vásáry, András Hernádi, and Stephen Hough. I am enormously grateful to all for their time, insights, and trust in sharing their memories with me.

For research in Russian, I was extremely lucky to have the help of Dr. Lyuba Vinogradova. Lyuba translated hundreds of pages of document, memoirs, letters, articles, and books, mostly via Skype from Mozambique, and accompanied me on a research trip to Moscow. For extra research, many thanks to Lyuba’s sister, Dr. Olga Vinogradova; mother, Dr. Galina Vinogradova; and mother’s friend, Zhanna Beresneva; as well as to Daria Lotareva, Alexander Netsvetaev, Angelica von Hase, Sim Smiley, and Susan Strange. I am indebted, too, to the staff of the State House–Museum of Tchaikovsky in Klin, to Elena Fetisova at the Glinka Museum, to Margarita Karatygina at the Moscow Conservatory, and to Alexander Scriabin at the Goldenweiser Museum.

For archival assistance in the United States, I am beholden to Laura Ruede at Texas Christian University’s Van Cliburn Competition Archive, Jeni Dahmus at the Juilliard School Archives, David Langbart
and Rob Thompson at the National Archives, Jonathan Movroydis at the Nixon Foundation, Jon Fletcher at the Nixon Library, Brigid Shields at the Minnesota Historical Society Library, Lynne Farrington and Tom Hensle at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center, Bill Monroe and Jennifer Betts at Brown University, and the staffs of the New York Public Library’s Music Division and the University of Arizona Library.

My thanks to Christine Peerless for interpreting at my interviews with Liu Shikun, and to Felix Gottlieb, Kirill Gilels, Yoshiko Yamamura, Allison Ouvry, Jasper Parrott, and Lily Hsu for help in various essential matters. My debts to earlier writers and scholars are acknowledged in the notes, but in particular, the two biographies of Van, by Abram Chasins (1959) and Howard Reich (1993), were rich resources for their interviews with Van and other key players, many no longer with us.

My agent and friend Henry Dunow took this project to heart and was indefatigable in perfecting the proposal and representing the book. I was thrilled to work again with Terry Karten, a true writer’s editor. At HarperCollins, thanks also to Jill Verrillo, Nikki Baldauf, Mary Jo Beaman, Jenna Dolan, Cindy Achar, Fritz Metsch, Renata Marchione, and Katherine Beitner.

My wife, Viviana, instantly shared my enthusiasm for Van’s story, which was just as well, since the research and writing were an intense experience for us both. But for her, this book would not exist. Our son, Orlando, who at four years of age has lived with it for more than half his life, was less thrilled by its incursions into his playtime. With confidence that he will one day understand, I dedicate it to him with the greatest joy.

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Beckerman, Gal.
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. Translated by Sergei V. Mikheyev
.
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Boyer, Paul.
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Brent, Jonathan, and Vladimir P. Naumov.
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