[78-L] Van Cliburn

[Philip Carli]

I have to say something - possibly the most _overhyped_ pianist in history, who still had good points, was Paderewski; the most _overrated_, based upon recordings, might be a tie between de Pachmann and Hambourg; the Tchaikovsky 1st may be one of the two most _overplayed_ piano concertos in the repertoire (the other being the Grieg) but I'm not sure about the "overrated" part.  Other concertos come up awfully often too but no-one dares to say anything about them, even if they don't care for them, for fear of being labelled a heretic - they're by more "venerated" composers than Tchaikovsky or Grieg. For overplaying, there's a great story by Berlioz in his _Evenings With The Orchestra_ about a piano that takes off on its own after dozens of Conservatoire prize aspirants in succession have played the Mendelssohn G minor concerto on it.  I haven't heard that concerto in concert in years, and it used to be on the top shelf of repertoire reliables.

Take it down a notch, maybe.  The US is full of ranters on all sorts of topics right now.  We could use a break from our allies.  PC
________________________________________
From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] on behalf of Mike Harkin [xxm.harkin at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 9:09 PM
To: 78-L Mail List
Subject: Re: [78-L] Van Cliburn

Funny, I was thinking much the same - good to know I'm not alone.  The thing is, he beat the Russians on their own turf at a time when it was very important to the US' national ego that he did so.  If he hadn't won that particular competition, we would never have
heard of him.  He was probably a very nice guy [who didn't finish last, for once].  Had a
hell of a technique, but no heart or soul to go with it.  RIP.  Бог да  го прости.

Mike in Plovdiv

--- On Fri, 3/1/13, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca> wrote:

From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: [78-L] Van Cliburn
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Date: Friday, March 1, 2013, 12:50 AM

Moscow Nights is the only thing I ever liked by him. The most overrated
pianist, the most overrated Concerto (Tchaikovsky)..I loathed his RCA recording
of it.

dl

On 2/28/2013 7:21 PM, Michael Biel wrote:
> We've been discussing him on ARSCList and Facebook and I hadn't noticed
> that there was nothing on 78-L.  I posted a photo of the Moscow Nights
> 78 that I bought in Moscow's Dom Knigi (House of Books) on Novy Arbat in
> 1995.
>
> https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/c67.0.403.403/p403x403/313317_10200205544653611_1461872688_n.jpg
>
>
> It is a studio recording, not the concert recording that was on LP and
> Youtube.
>
>   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1vZWJT-XGw
>
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
>
> From: David Lennick<dlennick at sympatico.ca>
>> Surprised not to have seen this before now (not OT,
>> his "Moscow Nights" was issued on 78 and he WAS 78).
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/27/van-cliburn-pianist-moscow-dies
>
> dl
>
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