Conductor: Kirill Kondrashin
Track listing: Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 23 First movement: Allegro non troppo e molto meaestoso; Allegro con spirito / Second movement: Andante simplico; Prestissimo; Tempo I / Third movement: Allegro con fuoco
August 11, 1958
7 weeks (nonconsecutive)
On April 11, 1958, a tall, 23-year-old Texan by the name of Van Cliburn shocked the music world by winning the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
On his return to the United States, the six-foot-four-inch pianist found that he had become a national hero. On May 19, he performed Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto and Rachmaninoff’s Third, the same program that wowed the Soviet audience, in front of an adoring crowd at Carnegie Hall. Despite his relatively young age, the music and the hall were not new to Cliburn. “I played in Carnegie Hall when I was 13 and I made my debut with the New York Philharmonic when I was 20 at Carnegie,” Cliburn says. As for Tchaikovsky, Cliburn had been playing the program for more than a decade. “I made my debut with the Houston Symphony with the Tchaikovsky Concerto when I was 12, as the result of a Texas competition for young people,” he recalls.
The day following his triumphant return to Carnegie Hall, Van Cliburn was treated to a ticker-tape parade. Three days later, he was interviewed by Edward R. Murrow. And the day after that, May 24, he recorded an album. After winning the Tchaikovsky competition, Cliburn had entered into a “gentlemen’s agreement” with RCA to record his award-winning performance. The result was Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1.
It was only fitting that Cliburn opted to record the album at Carnegie. But there was no audience, as the album was recorded in one overnight session running from midnight to 4:30 a.m.. “We were going to record it at a studio on 42nd Street,” says Cliburn, “but I didn’t like the ambiance, so I had the idea to do it at Carnegie, but the only time we could do it was at night, which suited me just wonderfully, because I like performing at night.”
Conducting the session was Kirill Kondrashin, who also served as conductor of the Moscow Radio Symphony, which had accompanied Cliburn during his award-winning performance in Moscow. “I got permission from Mr. Krushchev to bring him back with me,” says Cliburn, referring to the then-head of the Soviet Union. “He was the first Soviet conductor to come to the U.S. There was a very good relationship between us.”
The success of Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 caught even Billboard by surprise. In the August 11, 1958, issue, another RCA album, Perry Como’s Como’s Golden Records was incorrectly placed in the Number One position. In the following issue, the error was corrected with an explanation, “Thru an error in tabulating, the sales of Van Cliburn’s recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 were inadvertently credited to Como’s Golden Records, both on RCA Victor.”
The magazine also ran a front-page story on Cliburn’s surprise success, sporting the headline, “Cliburn Album Sells Like Hot Single.” The article noted that “at Victor these days they mention the names of Presley and Cliburn in one breath.”
Although the perfectionist Cliburn only considered the recording of Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 “passable,” he has nothing but praise for the music. “It’s a world-beloved treasure,” he says. “When you examine the piece now you know why it is famous, because it has equal parts intelligence and emotion, and equal parts intelligence and emotion give you a masterpiece.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of August 11, 1958
1. Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1, Van Cliburn
2. Gigi, Soundtrack
3. Johnny’s Greatest Hits, Johnny Mathis
4. South Pacific, Soundtrack
5. South Pacific, Original Cast