Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor, Op.23 (with Rachmaninov-Piano concerto No 3)

"The '58 Tchaikovsky Competition proved truly that Van's the man. Amazing though it seems, this is the first appearance of Van Cliburn's legendary victorious performances at the International Tchaikovsky Competiton. If pinpoint accuracy is your thing, this won't be for you. But for interpretative genius allied to a nerve-jangling sense of occasion, this is unforgettable. A disc to shake you to the core."
Editor's Choice Gramophone Magazine (Feb 2009)

1958 was a red-letter year not only in music competition
history but in the entire history of performance. In that
year the USSR established the first International Tchaikovsky Competition as a showcase for its own imperial talent. Once again the USSR would demonstrate that in the sphere of great romantic piano playing (one extending from Anton Rubinstein to Richter and Gilels) they had no equals. Summoning the finest pianists and jurors they prepared for a foregone victory followed by international acclaim. But neither they nor anyone else could have expected the gauntlet thrown down by a twenty-four-year-old 6' 4'' blond Texan pianist called Van Cliburn. Viewed with suspicion, Cliburn's nationality invited hostility. This was the time of the cold war and the very real possiblity of a nuclear Armageddon as the USSR and America viewed each other across a seemingly unbridgeable chasm. Pre-conceived notions of American, Juilliard-trained pianists were in the air, of a crew-cut school expressed in broken-glass sound. So that Cliburn's performances, characterised by broad tempi, rare poetic rhapsody and freedom captured in massive and delicate
tone, came like a bolt out of the blue. All possible
animosity turned to awe and amazement as Cliburn's
outsize audience listened to a pianist 'more Russian than
the Russians', one who played their own music with a rare emotional warmth and charisma. Suddenly Cliburn,
an outsider from alien territory, became their beloved
'Vanushka', the stage and dressing-room littered with gifts
and flowers. Cliburn arrived in Moscow with three
suitcases and left with seventeen.

Later, when both jury and audience had recovered,
their comments came thick and fast and this Testament
release will surely re-ignite not a controversy but a
unique triumph and occasion. Sviatoslav Richter, happily
oblivious to competition protocol, gave Cliburn a
hundred marks, his competitors zero, remarking, 'he is a
pianist, the others are not'. Shostakovich joined in the
chorus of praise and Irina Zaritskaya (herself a major
prize-winner, taking second place to Maurizio Pollini in
the 1960 Chopin Competition in Warsaw) spoke with a
special eloquence of Cliburn's unique quality. "For we
Russians his way with Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov in
particular was uncanny. Such grandeur, romantic warmth
and empathy. He came close to sentimentality, but he
never quite crossed the line. His playing had an
extraordinary nobility. You can't even imagine the furore
he caused and his playing is still endlessly discussed in
Russia today."