[78-L] Van Cliburn

[David Lewis]

Philip Carli wrote:

I'd attempt to contest this, lightly, but it's hard to come up against loathing and "no heart and soul" as opening gambits.

>>>>

Van specialized in a very limited part of the repertoire; running roughly from Tchaikovsky to MacDowell. He did so without effulgence, longeurs
and artifice, resulting in very clean, deliberate and powerful interpretations where the composition itself worked to achieve "affekt" rather than
the whims of interpreters. The appeal of his playing at the time was wide, and widely respected. As time word on, his playing developed a kind of
additional layer of hardness and brilliance which was not to his liking, so he dropped out. I regret that Van didn't see fit to pursue modern 
literature beyond Prokofiev where the later facility would have been effective -- imagine what he could have done with Barber, Copland, Stravinsky,
Bartok etc. But he would have been regarded by his fan base as a turncoat; not so much now, but does anyone here remember the climate in regard to
modernism in the 'Sixties? I would hope so, as that attitude is making a comeback in some quarters.

I would say that there is plenty of heart and soul in Van's work, but his Apollonian edge may be heard as a kind of emotional distance and coldness.
It was a kind of striving for perfection for which younger listeners have no frame of reference. 

As to overrated, bloated first tier romantic piano concertos go, we're a little spoiled as we can access just about any representative 19th century
piano concerto these days; it is no big deal to draw down superlative and exceptionally long works like the first d'Albert concerto or Busoni's 
mammoth 1904 effort which wear their age a bit better than do Greig and Tchaikovsky 1. And I agree that after the big tune at the opening of Tchaikovsky
1 the composer launches into a long and tedious series of unsuccessful developments that relate little to the original theme. Not only that, but the
turnback to the orchestral tutti itself from the cadenza in the opening theme is terribly, terribly seamy. But the version we hear now of the work
is itself a revision from a score that was even worse, as I understand it, and Tchaikovsky was never able to bring it into a form which pleased him.
Nevertheless, none of these deficiencies easily noted by analytical minds have ever led to a decline in the popularity of this concerto; nowhere near.
So go figure. 

I guess about the best defense I can give for Van is that even when he was at his worst, neither myself nor anyone on this list could come close to
playing as well as he did. That he turned his efforts towards fostering the careers and aspirations of others after he had basically met his own
aspirations early on is certainly admirable. I only regret that he did not continue recording after dropping out, as Glenn Gould did, nor did he have
the appetite for exploration in the literature as did Gould. I am not surprised that his Mozart playing was so widely condemned, as his big sound
wasn't an ideal fit for Mozart's delicate conceptions. But to have the Alkan Symphony under his hands? One could only imagine what that would've been
like.   

Uncle Dave Lewis
uncledavelewis at hotmail.com