We specialize in hard to find items
All Categories
Van Cliburn - The Complete Album Collection
Share Tweet
*Price and Stocks may change without prior notice
*Packaging of actual item may differ from photo shown
- Electrical items MAY be 110 volts.
- 7 Day Return Policy
- All products are genuine and original
About Van Cliburn - The Complete Album Collection
Considered to be one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, Harvey Lavan ‘Van’ Cliburn (b. 1934) came from a musical family: his mother was an accomplished concert pianist who had studied in New York with Arthur Friedheim (Franz Liszt’s personal & musical secretary). Cliburn studied at Juilliard with Rosina Lhévinne who trained him in the Russian Romantic style and soon everyone became aware of his extraordinary talent. A jury made up of such stars as Nadia Reisenberg, Rudolf Serkin, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Istomin & George Szell bestowed the annual Leventritt Foundation Award upon him when he was just 20. This victory led to immediate engagements as a soloist with leading American orchestras. Cliburn was encouraged to apply for the USSR’s First International Tchaikovsky Competition, established in 1958 to showcase the country’s greatest talent. The Russian audiences fell in love with Cliburn’s playing and quickly embraced his open, authentic personality. He won the competition at the age of 23 at the height of the Cold War and returned to America a hero, complete with a ticker-tape parade in New York City, overnight superstar status and a RCA Victor recording contract. Naturally he recorded the Tchaikovsky First and Rachmaninov Third Concertos right away and RCA asked Kyrill Kondrashin to accompany him. It is to Cliburn’s credit that he sought out recordings with prominent conductors of his era that also were under contract to RCA Victor. In 1962, the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was founded. The Van Cliburn Album Collection brings together for the first time all the live and studio recordings the legendary pianist made for RCA, from his 1958 debut recordings of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninov's No
