When the World Stopped to Listen

November 28, 2016
Unlike Nigel Cliff’s recent book on the same topic, Moscow Nights, Isacoff’s well-researched account of the inaugural Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 focuses less on politics and more on piano and Van Cliburn, who won that competition. While researching the book, he talked to an impressive list of pianists and others of all nationalities, and even unearthed the second-round scorecard, laying to rest the question of how Sviatoslav Richter voted. There are touching stories, such as the reconciliation of the long-feuding judges Heinrich Neuhaus and Alexander Goldenweiser, but there are also unnecessary cul-de-sacs, including details of Spaso House, the residence of the U.S. ambassadors to the Soviet Union (and now to Russia). Isacoff (The Natural History of the Piano) keeps the musicology to a minimum, but there are some head-scratching passages, such as when he talks about the “physical separation that exists between the pianist sitting at one end of the instrument and the piano’s hammers hitting the strings at the other.” He also hints at a New York Times–led conspiracy to promote Cliburn. “Where was the New York Times” when Leon Fleisher won the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1952, he asks. The fact that Isacoff wrote this book and not one about Fleisher and the Queen Elisabeth would seem its own best answer.

Pianist Van Cliburn wowed the Soviet Union in a Tchaikovsky competition in April 1958--when the Cold War was at its peak. Isacoff recreates the events that brightened the bleakness of that time as manifested in both the weather and international politics. Narrator Stefan Rudnicki adds warmth and humor to the story of Cliburn's achievement. He gives Cliburn's dialogue a gentle Texas drawl. Isacoff goes beyond the competition with a look at Soviet life, in particular the popularity of American jazz and film, and the Soviet politicization of culture. Cliburn's life as a gay man, and a quickly dropped Soviet investigation of it, also feature in the story. This biography of an international sensation brings listeners back to the Cold War era. J.A.S. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine