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Start giftingWhen the World Stopped to Listen
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Learn moreApril of 1958—the Iron Curtain was at its heaviest, and the outcome of the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition seemed preordained. Nonetheless, as star musicians from across the globe descended on Moscow, an unlikely favorite emerged: Van Cliburn, a polite, lanky Texan whose passionate virtuosity captured the Russian spirit.
This is the story of what unfolded that spring—for Cliburn and the other competitors, jurors, party officials, and citizens of the world who were touched by the outcome. It is a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most remarkable events in musical history, filled with political intrigue and personal struggle as artists strove for self-expression and governments jockeyed for prestige. And, at the core of it all: the value of artistic achievement, the supremacy of the heart, and the transcendent freedom that can be found, through music, even in the darkest moments of human history.
Stuart Isacoff is a pianist, writer, and the founder of Piano Today magazine, which he edited for nearly three decades. A winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing about music, he is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and many other publications. He is also the author of The Natural History of the Piano and Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization. He lives in Closter, New Jersey.
Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and an award-winning narrator who has won several Audie Awards, as well as more than twenty-five Earphones Awards, and been named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices.
Reviews
“A tightly focused monograph that profits from the fact that its author is himself a pianist…[revealing] why Cliburn played the way he played—and how his distinctive style helped him win.”
“Analyzes Cliburn’s strengths and weaknesses…[and] the particular velvet touch that produced that inimitable Cliburn tone…Isacoff has also collected those juicy little tidbits that Cliburn fans love to trade.”
“Stuart Isacoff is a music scholar, and a superb one…This was a fascinating and important event… A juicy book.”
“More than a history of this historic competition, Isacoff’s book is a testament to the power music has to transcend differences.”
“Isacoff compellingly details the various backstage intrigues.”
“Not only is Isacoff’s prose evocative, he is both a pianist and a historian of the piano. His descriptions are often music lessons in themselves.”
“Isacoff pulls aside the curtain on the competition, from the backroom dealings to the (disgusting and dangerous) contents of the drug cocktail that fueled Cliburn to victory. He combines a sharp, unsparing biographical eye with a mastery of the musical and social history of the time.”
“Isacoff brings both a pianist’s insights and a historian’s rigor to an event that shook the musical world—indeed, the world at large—almost six decades ago.”
“Well researched…Assures that [Cliburn] won’t be just a footnote in the annals of piano artistry.
“[A] compelling, historically vivid account…a page-turner that resonates long after the final sentence.”
“The author’s deftly written narrative places Cliburn both in the world of classical music and the larger Cold War conflict.”
“This well-rounded biography will move readers…Essential reading for music lovers.”
“A touching portrait of Cliburn.”
“An exciting, thorough, and deeply moving reminder of Van Cliburn’s triumph at the Tchaikovsky Competition.”
“Beautifully written…an insider’s report of the onstage and offstage drama around the 1958 triumph of Van Cliburn and the incredible musical events that led to a Cold War ‘thaw.’”
“[This] remarkably candid, sensitive, and level-headed narration of Van Cliburn’s life paints a broad and enlightening picture of the Soviet Union and the United States during Cliburn’s musical ascendency…a heady mix that Stuart Isacoff examines with unusual skill.”
“The singular odyssey of the Cold War’s remarkable pianistic icon is recounted in a breathtaking synergy of unprecedented worldwide scholarship, fervent musical insight, and virtuoso storytelling…indispensable.”
“With Van Cliburn’s remarkable victory in the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition as centerpiece, Stuart Isacoff has given us a sensitive, in-depth portrait of the triumphs and tragedies which plagued Cliburn for the rest of his life.”
“Stuart Isacoff, a stellar researcher, tells a spellbinding, even a startling, adventure story, starring the legendary American pianist: a life of triumph and tragedy.”
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