Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story-How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War (68 page)

138
  
resented Richter’s first rank:
Monsaingeon,
Sviatoslav Richter
, 31–32; Elena Cheremynch, interview with the author, August 11, 2004.

138
  
denying he had ever been his student:
The issue is still controversial; the Emil Gilels Foundation claims that Neuhaus treated Gilels badly. Certainly Richter was a tricky character.

138
  
missing one morning session:
Norman Shetler, interview with the author. My account of Richter’s and Neuhaus’s behavior on the committee draws on work by Elena Cheremynch, who examined the original records in detail. Also useful were Monsaingeon,
Sviatoslav Richter
; Rasmussen,
Sviatoslav Richter
;
VC
.

138
  
“poor man’s Prokofiev”:
Monsaingeon,
Sviatoslav Richter
, 56.

138
  
“deeply unpleasant . . . threadbare music”:
Ibid.

138
  
ganged up on the composer Nikita Bogoslovsky
:
CCCP&C
, 62.

139
  
“I don’t like this” . . . “speaking with God”:
Sergei Dorensky, interview with Lyuba Vinogradova.

139
  
full twenty-five points:
Evaluation papers for Van Cliburn for the three stages of the First International Tchaikovsky Competition, F.45, dm16No184/6, 33–64, SHM. This and subsequent marks are taken from the original slips held at the Tchaikovsky Museum; the Glinka Museum also has tabulated results from the second round.

139
  
Twenty competitors:
The
New York Times
ran a brief AP piece, “U.S. Pianists Advance,” on April 5, but as yet there was no notice that anything unusual was afoot.

139
  
never took students:
Richter never heard Shetler play, since he was absent on the first day of the preliminary round. The two did, though, stay in touch, exchanging Christmas cards and taking walks in Central Park when Richter visited New York.

140
  
admitted as much to Norman Shetler:
Interview with the author.

140
  
lost her temper:
Ibid.

141
  
“Hello, I’m Slava Rostropovich”:
Van related the story in “Nobody Dares Speak Badly of Russia in Front of Me.”

141
  
“I have walked”:
Undated press release, Tchaikovsky Competition Album, F.45, dm4No292/74, SHM.

142
  
“No tickets left”:
VCL
, 105.

8: “VANYA, VANYUSHA!”

143
  
Victory taxis:
The GAZ M-20 “Podeba” was produced in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) from 1946 to 1958 and was ubiquitous at state-run taxicab ranks.

144
  
childhood sweetheart, Tamara:
Tamara Miansarova, “Shag dlinoyu v zhizn,”
Karavan Istoriy
, January 2013.

145
  
a Westerner could not win:
Norman Shetler, interview with the author.

145
  
knocked him out flat:
“Van Cliburn At Home,”
Ogonyok
24 (1958), 29.

145
  
hair cream:
“All-American Virtuoso.”

145
  
almost unrecognizable:
Shtilman, “In That Memorable April.”

146
  
members of the jury were applauding:
A. Zolotov, untitled article,
Moskovsky Komsomolets
, April 1958.

146
  
told the press officers:
Undated press release, Tchaikovsky Competition Album, F.45, dm4No292/74, SHM.

146
  
Flier, hid:
Vlassenko,
Lev Vlassenko
, 75.

146
  
“nothing but golden monsters”:
VCL
, 120.

147
  
“Is it true”:
Ella Vlassenko, interview with the author.

147
  
private capacity:
Minutes of meeting held February 7, 1958, JABT.

147
  
“Is this kid” . . . “ever let him”:
Madigan, “‘The Texan Who Conquered Russia.’”

147
  
“second or third”:
VCL
, 107.

148
  
“Come on” . . . “if I’d let him”:
Mark Schubart, quoted in SH.

148
  
“chosen one”:
VC
, 108.

148
  
“Why do you do this” . . . “music or not music”:
Ibid. Reich places the scene in the first round, quoting the information of the pianist Andrei Gavrilov (born in 1955 but later a student of Richter’s) that Richter was disgusted by the judges’ attempt to mark down Van and mark up other contestants, especially Vlassenko, so he gave Van full marks and the rest zero. Vlassenko did not appear in the first round, in which Richter gave no candidate zero. He debuted in the second round, in which Richter gave all but seven competitors zero, and the episode must be placed here.

148
  
“individualism”:
Monsaingeon,
Sviatoslav Richter
, 56.

148
  
other members of the jury protested:
CCCP&C
, 52.

148
  
“first international competition”:
Monsaingeon,
Sviatoslav Richter
, 56.

148
  
in part by Richter himself:
Richter claimed to Monsaingeon that he had given zeros to all but three others; he boasted that he acted deliberately in order “to eliminate the others and leave only Van.” Ibid., 56–57.

149
  
zeros were later crossed out:
Elena Cheremynch, who made a detailed study of the sheets, led me to this interesting detail. It explains the discrepancy between Culture Minister Mikhailov’s report (
CCCP&C
, 52), which mentions the zeros, and the Glinka Museum’s tabulation of the second-round scores, which records the threes.

149
  
field of finalists:
See “2 U.S. Pianists in Final” (AP),
NYT
, April 10, 1958.

150
  
slept with it under their pillows:
Maria Lvova, interview with the author, August 8, 2014.

150
  
“He reminds me of my son”:
Madigan, “‘The Texan Who Conquered Russia.’”

151
  
snapped him in the act:
Moor’s photographs appeared in
Life
on April 28; his report was the basis for
Time
’s cover story on Van published on May 19. This scene is reconstructed from both.

151
  
involved with the composer Aaron Copland:
Howard Pollack,
Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man
(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 245.

151
  
Mrs. Lillian Reid:
“Writer for
Time
Plans El Paso Visit,”
El Paso Herald-Post
, July 28, 1958.

151
  
pupil of Arthur Friedheim:
“A Letter from the Publisher,”
Time
, May 19, 1958.

151
  
His right index finger was bandaged:
VC
, 113.

152
  
Harriet Wingreen:
Harriet had left with Joyce Flissler on a tour that was intended to take in Leningrad, Kiev, Riga, and Odessa, but the violinist fell ill in Leningrad, and the tour was canceled.

152
  
poor French girl:
Nadia Gedda Nova, whose rehearsal Van had admired. Moor, “Sviatoslav Richter: Sequestered Genius,” 51.

152
  
“shy boy”:
N. Mikhailov, “I’m Going to Miss Russia,”
Komsomolskaya Pravda
, May 18, 1958.

153
  
transported back centuries:
Van told former Cliburn Foundation president Richard Rodzinski that he visualized the Tchaikovsky concerto as an opera, with the libretto and singers’ parts worked out, and staged it in his mind as he played; interview with the author, June 27, 2014. Van described the imaginary scenes in Wayne Lee Gay, “Cliburn’s Tour Includes Old Russian Friends,”
Washington Sunday Times
, August 21, 1994.

154
  
as he had never played in his life:
Van thought so, too. “I genuinely felt at that moment that God’s blessing had descended upon me,” he recalled nearly a half century later. “I played like I never did again in my life.” “‘Vanya’ Cliburn: Popular Does Not Mean Good.”

154
  
one-act opera:
The view is ascribed to Van in “The Reluctant Virtuoso,”
Time
, July 25, 1994.

155
  
“Just like Rachmaninoff”:
Madigan, “‘The Texan Who Conquered Russia.’”

155
  
“Genius! Genius!”:
“Texan in Moscow,”
Time
, April 21, 1958. Max Frankel also recorded Goldenweiser’s comment in “Russians Cheer U.S. Pianist, 23,”
NYT
, April 12, 1958.

156
  
“Oh my dear boy”:
CCCP&C
, 47.

156
  
cordons collapsed:
So recalled the pianist Alexander Solbodyanik in
VC
, 118.

156
  
“We were mistaken”:
“‘Vanya’ Cliburn: Popular Does Not Mean Good.”

157
  
students had already written in “VAN CLIBURN”:
The usual version is that Van’s name had been added in large letters in a single hand, but Nina Lelchuk, who was present, recalled that many students wrote his name in. “Chudo po imeni Van Klaybern: Na smert Van Klayberna,”
Sem iskusstv
5, no. 43 (May 2013), 7iskusstv.com/2013/Nomer5/Leichuk1.php.

157
  
hushed up:
VC
, 118; and Vladimir Ashkenazy, interview with the author. Ashkenazy still rates Van’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto no. 3 as the greatest he has heard.

157
  
piano-mad schoolgirls:
Elena Klepikova, “Triumf i molchanie Vana Kliburna” (Triumph and Silence of Van Cliburn),
Russkiy Bazar
, April 17, 2008, http://russian-bazaar.com/ru/content/12287.htm.