Moscow Nights

by Nigel Cliff

  113Lev Vlassenko: My account is drawn from my interview with Lev’s widow, Ella, conducted in Moscow on August 10, 2014, together with the collected reminiscences of Lev and others in Lev Vlassenko: Articles, Reminiscences, Interviews (Brisbane: Allstate Printing and Graphics, 2009), and Lev Vlassenko: Grani lichnosti (Moscow: Musyka, 2013).

  113“Iron Lev”: Viktor Likht, “Shtarkman in the Memoirs of His Friends,” Zametki po Evreiskoi Istorii 10 (October 2006), Internet publication.

  113Hungarian students: Tamás Vásáry, interview with the author, June 13, 2014. In the heated political atmosphere, Vásáry, quite against his nature, was the ringleader.

  115“Oh, thank goodness . . . gelatin a day”: VCL, 98–99.

  118State Department summoned Mark Schubart: VC, 96–97.

  118“Look . . . see if he can help”: VCL, 100.

  119“Mrs. Leventritt . . . in my life”: SH.

  119“I could tell”: Sid Friedlander, “He Played the Piano and the World Was His,” New York Post, May 16, 1958.

  119“I’m going to win”: Schuyler Chapin, quoted in SH.

  120“The Army can do anything”: Abilene Reporter-News, February 12, 1958.

  7: TO RUSSIA, WITH LOVE

  123That was his first thought: VCG; Alann Sampson, interview with the author, August 17, 2014. My account of Van’s experiences in Moscow draws on dozens of interviews he gave on the subject for the rest of his life, in both the United States and the USSR/Russia. Specific references are given for quotations and unique or noteworthy details, but no attempt has been made to annotate every instance of authorial discretion in choosing among minor discrepancies and variants. Particularly useful were Peter Rosen’s interview, cited as VCG; the reports of Time and the NYT; contemporary interviews in Soviet publications and press releases kept at the Tchaikovsky Museum in Klin; VCL; and VC. The documents reprinted in CCCP&C on pp. 41–59 are invaluable for a view from inside the Soviet government.

  124subzero cold: The weather conditions throughout Van’s visit are taken from Vechernyaya Moskva, which published a daily forecast.

  124Harriet Wingreen: Interview with the author, May 13, 2014.

  125boxy apartment buildings: Dubbed Khrushchyovka and then Khrushcheby (a pun on trushcheby, or “slums”), the apartment buildings saw their drearily uniform design become the subject of endless Soviet jokes. In one 1975 movie, Ironiya sudby, ili S lyogkim parom! (The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!), an inebriated Muscovite wakes up at the airport, takes a taxi to his address, lets himself in with his key, and finds himself in familiar surroundings—until he realizes he took the plane to Leningrad by mistake.

  126square of his childhood dreams: “I feel as if I passed my childhood here, by the fantastic St. Basil’s Cathedral, on the cobbles of the pavement among the pigeons,” Van said in “Part of My Heart Is in Moscow,” Moskva 11 (1962), 173.

  127“ARRIVED SAFELY EVERYTHING WONDERFUL”: Quoted in a letter from Rildia Bee Cliburn to Rosina Lhévinne, March 26, 1958, Folder 19, Box 2, RLP.

  127competition papers: Fonds 96m, Nos. 79–80; 81–82; 159–60; 177–78; GM.

  127nylon stocking: “All-American Virtuoso.”

  128reports on him for the KGB: This was simply taken for granted by everyone familiar with Soviet policy at the time. “In those days even the slightest detail was noted, and every word spoken by a guest was recorded,” recalls Sergei Khrushchev in NKCS, 323. The interpreters are mostly remembered as charming people.

  128KGB’s official Moscow hotel: Victor Cherkashin and Gregory Feifer, Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer (New York: Basic, 2005), 46.

  128secret monitoring rooms: Joy Neumeyer, “Poetry, Magic and Showgirls: The Story of Triumfalnaya Ploshchad,” Moscow News, April 22, 2013.

  128Hotel Ukraine: Now the Radisson Royal. See Margarita Troitsina, “Secrets of Stalin’s Seven Moscow Skyscrapers,” Pravda, October 29, 2009.

  128concealed microphones: Norman Shetler, interview with the author, December 12, 2015.

  128“Henya”: Sergei Dorensky, interview with Lyuba Vinogradova, July 17, 2014. Then a graduate student and assistant teacher who had won first prizes at competitions in Warsaw and Brazil, Dorensky was later a leading professor of piano at the conservatory.

  129Daniel Pollack . . . the wrong pieces: Pollack was studying at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna; the professor responsible for the error was Bruno Seidelhofer. For his experiences in Moscow, see VC, 103–4; “Piano Pathways: Daniel Pollack, 50 Years Later,” audio recording, Weekend Edition, NPR, Saturday, January 12, 2008, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18026453; “Daniel Pollack and the First International Tchaikovsky Competition,” USC Thornton press release, March 1, 2013, https://music.usc.edu/files/2013/06/Pollack_and_the_Tchaikovsky_ Competition.pdf; “Interview with Daniel Pollack,” bakitone.com/about/interview/daniel_pollack; “Interview with pianist Daniel Pollack,” http://www.examiner.com/article/interview-with-pianist-daniel-pollack-part-i; Jeff Kaliss, “Daniel Pollack: From Russia with Love,” https://www.sfcv.org/events-calendar/artist-spotlight/daniel-pollack-from-russia-with-love; Clifford J. Levy, “Piano Man, Winning Russian Hearts and Minds,” NYT, May 29, 2009.

  129Jerome Lowenthal: Lowenthal, “Of Cortot, Kapell, Steuermann, and Preserving Musical Traditions,” Clavier 41, no. 9 (November 2002); M. Uszler, “American Savoir-Faire: An Interview with Jerome Lowenthal,” Piano and Keyboard no. 192 (May/June 1998).

  129Norman Shetler: Interview with the author. See also Moor, “Sviatoslav Richter: Sequestered Genius,” 49–51, 157–59. Shetler met Van in 1951 and enrolled in Juilliard to start in the fall of 1952, but he was drafted that summer and entered the army in October.

  130“Welcome to Moscow”: VCL, 103; “Cliburn Finds Russian Music Lovers Sincere and Gracious” (UP), Galveston Daily News, April 18, 1958.

  130competition in Lisbon: The Vianna da Motta Competition, first organized in 1957 by Motta’s protégé Sequeira Costa, who was subsequently the youngest judge for the Tchaikovsky Competition.

  130queen of Belgium arrived: See The Queen Elisabeth of Belgium in the Soviet Union, film dir. A. Rybakova, CSDF, 1958, net-film.ru/en/film-4919/; Tchaikovsky Competition 1958, youtube.com/watch?v=UeE4szjJQMk.

  131Thorunn Johannsdottir: Interview with the author, September 3, 2014. She performed under the name Thorunn Tryggvason.

  132Soviet composer spread rumors: Mikhailov, “Report from the Ministry of Culture,” in CCCP&C, 51–52. Mikhailov insists the claims were pure slander.

  133Twenty-five violinists: The booklet of competitors’ biographies, which was evidently prepared sometime before the start of the competition, lists twenty-nine violinists (twenty-four men and five women) and fifty pianists (thirty-one men and nineteen women). The final figures of twenty-five and thirty-six are given in Culture Minister Mikhailov’s report in CCCP&C; the secretary of the jury confirms the number in S. Simonov, “On the International Piano Competition,” SM, April 21, 1958. Abram Chasins’s claim that forty-eight pianists took part suggests that the contestants themselves were unaware of the actual number.

  133three Americans: Evidently they were expected until the last minute; the NYT reported on March 25, 1958, that eight American musicians were to compete in Moscow.

  133Six were excused: In “On the International Piano Competition,” Simonov, the jury secretary, says thirty contestants took part in the preliminary stage. Pollack had won first prize in the little-known Guild Record Festival; Lowenthal had won second prize, behind Martha Argerich and jointly with Texas pianist Ivan Davis, in the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition held in Bolzano in 1957. (Jeaneane Dowis took third prize; the previous year, James Mathis had come third and Ivan Davis second; and in 1960, Mathis tried again and improved to second place.) Roger Boutry of France and Alexei Skavronsky of the Soviet Union were also excused during the first round.

  133twelve judges from the Soviet Bloc: Seven were from the Soviet Union: Gilels, Richter, Neuhaus, Oborin, a
nd Kabalevsky, together with the Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshinsky and the pianist Pavel Serebryakov, whom Olegna Fuschi had met in Brazil. Also from the Soviet Bloc were the Bulgarian composer Pancho Vladigerov, the Romanian conductor George Georgescu, and pianists František Maxián (Czechoslovakia), Lajos Hernádi (Hungary), and Henryk Sztompka (Poland). The five remaining judges were Bliss, the Brazilian composer Camargo Guarnieri, the Belgian conductor Fernand Quinet, the French pianist Armand de Gontaut-Biron, and the Portuguese pianist José Carlos de Sequeira Costa. The last two replaced three who withdrew after the competition materials had been printed—Joseph Marx (Austria), Carlo Zecchi (Italy), and Marguerite Long (France)—making the total seventeen rather than the intended eighteen.

  134French-kissing: Norman Shetler, interview with the author.

  134“LOVE AND THOUGHTS”: Van Cliburn telegram to Rosina Lhévinne, Folder 20, Box 2, RLP.

  134voice of Russia itself: Van recalled the episode numerous times, most evocatively in “Nobody Dares Speak Badly of Russia in Front of Me,” Trud, September 18, 2009.

  135Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian: TM1.

  136Smiles broke out: For the impact of Van’s appearance, see E. Gobrynina, “New Meetings with Van Cliburn,” Muzykalnaya Zhizn 13 (1962), 16–17. Van remembered his own reactions most clearly in “Winners of the Competition Speak,” SM, May 1958.

  136four études: Chopin’s “Winter Wind,” op. 25, no. 11; Scriabin’s Op. 8 in D-sharp Minor; Rachmaninoff’s “Étude-Tableau” in E-flat Minor, op. 39; and Liszt’s “Mazeppa.”

  137tears glistened: Arthur Shtilman, “In that memorable April: Fifty years ago—the triumph of Van Cliburn in Moscow,” Jewish Heritage Almanac 2, no. 55 (March/April 2008), http://berkovich-zametki.com/2008/Starina/Nomer2/Shtilman1.htm.

  138resented Richter’s first rank: Monsaingeon, Sviatoslav Richter, 31–32; Elena Cheremynch, interview with the author, August 11, 2004.

  138denying he had ever been his student: The issue is still controversial; the Emil Gilels Foundation claims that Neuhaus treated Gilels badly. Certainly Richter was a tricky character.

  138missing one morning session: Norman Shetler, interview with the author. My account of Richter’s and Neuhaus’s behavior on the committee draws on work by Elena Cheremynch, who examined the original records in detail. Also useful were Monsaingeon, Sviatoslav Richter; Rasmussen, Sviatoslav Richter; VC.

  138“poor man’s Prokofiev”: Monsaingeon, Sviatoslav Richter, 56.

  138“deeply unpleasant . . . threadbare music”: Ibid.

  138ganged up on the composer Nikita Bogoslovsky: CCCP&C, 62.

  139“I don’t like this” . . . “speaking with God”: Sergei Dorensky, interview with Lyuba Vinogradova.

  139full twenty-five points: Evaluation papers for Van Cliburn for the three stages of the First International Tchaikovsky Competition, F.45, dm16No184/6, 33–64, SHM. This and subsequent marks are taken from the original slips held at the Tchaikovsky Museum; the Glinka Museum also has tabulated results from the second round.

  139Twenty competitors: The New York Times ran a brief AP piece, “U.S. Pianists Advance,” on April 5, but as yet there was no notice that anything unusual was afoot.

  139never took students: Richter never heard Shetler play, since he was absent on the first day of the preliminary round. The two did, though, stay in touch, exchanging Christmas cards and taking walks in Central Park when Richter visited New York.

  140admitted as much to Norman Shetler: Interview with the author.

  140lost her temper: Ibid.

  141“Hello, I’m Slava Rostropovich”: Van related the story in “Nobody Dares Speak Badly of Russia in Front of Me.”

  141“I have walked”: Undated press release, Tchaikovsky Competition Album, F.45, dm4No292/74, SHM.

  142“No tickets left”: VCL, 105.

  8: “VANYA, VANYUSHA!”

  143Victory taxis: The GAZ M-20 “Podeba” was produced in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) from 1946 to 1958 and was ubiquitous at state-run taxicab ranks.

  144childhood sweetheart, Tamara: Tamara Miansarova, “Shag dlinoyu v zhizn,” Karavan Istoriy, January 2013.

  145a Westerner could not win: Norman Shetler, interview with the author.

  145knocked him out flat: “Van Cliburn At Home,” Ogonyok 24 (1958), 29.

  145hair cream: “All-American Virtuoso.”

  145almost unrecognizable: Shtilman, “In That Memorable April.”

  146members of the jury were applauding: A. Zolotov, untitled article, Moskovsky Komsomolets, April 1958.

  146told the press officers: Undated press release, Tchaikovsky Competition Album, F.45, dm4No292/74, SHM.

  146Flier, hid: Vlassenko, Lev Vlassenko, 75.

  146“nothing but golden monsters”: VCL, 120.

  147“Is it true”: Ella Vlassenko, interview with the author.

  147private capacity: Minutes of meeting held February 7, 1958, JABT.

  147“Is this kid” . . . “ever let him”: Madigan, “‘The Texan Who Conquered Russia.’”

  147“second or third”: VCL, 107.

  148“Come on” . . . “if I’d let him”: Mark Schubart, quoted in SH.

  148“chosen one”: VC, 108.

  148“Why do you do this” . . . “music or not music”: Ibid. Reich places the scene in the first round, quoting the information of the pianist Andrei Gavrilov (born in 1955 but later a student of Richter’s) that Richter was disgusted by the judges’ attempt to mark down Van and mark up other contestants, especially Vlassenko, so he gave Van full marks and the rest zero. Vlassenko did not appear in the first round, in which Richter gave no candidate zero. He debuted in the second round, in which Richter gave all but seven competitors zero, and the episode must be placed here.

  148“individualism”: Monsaingeon, Sviatoslav Richter, 56.

  148other members of the jury protested: CCCP&C, 52.

  148“first international competition”: Monsaingeon, Sviatoslav Richter, 56.

  148in part by Richter himself: Richter claimed to Monsaingeon that he had given zeros to all but three others; he boasted that he acted deliberately in order “to eliminate the others and leave only Van.” Ibid., 56–57.

  149zeros were later crossed out: Elena Cheremynch, who made a detailed study of the sheets, led me to this interesting detail. It explains the discrepancy between Culture Minister Mikhailov’s report (CCCP&C, 52), which mentions the zeros, and the Glinka Museum’s tabulation of the second-round scores, which records the threes.

  149field of finalists: See “2 U.S. Pianists in Final” (AP), NYT, April 10, 1958.

  150slept with it under their pillows: Maria Lvova, interview with the author, August 8, 2014.

  150“He reminds me of my son”: Madigan, “‘The Texan Who Conquered Russia.’”

  151snapped him in the act: Moor’s photographs appeared in Life on April 28; his report was the basis for Time’s cover story on Van published on May 19. This scene is reconstructed from both.

  151involved with the composer Aaron Copland: Howard Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 245.

  151Mrs. Lillian Reid: “Writer for Time Plans El Paso Visit,” El Paso Herald-Post, July 28, 1958.

  151pupil of Arthur Friedheim: “A Letter from the Publisher,” Time, May 19, 1958.

  151His right index finger was bandaged: VC, 113.

  152Harriet Wingreen: Harriet had left with Joyce Flissler on a tour that was intended to take in Leningrad, Kiev, Riga, and Odessa, but the violinist fell ill in Leningrad, and the tour was canceled.

  152poor French girl: Nadia Gedda Nova, whose rehearsal Van had admired. Moor, “Sviatoslav Richter: Sequestered Genius,” 51.

  152“shy boy”: N. Mikhailov, “I’m Going to Miss Russia,” Komsomolskaya Pravda, May 18, 1958.

  153transported back centuries: Van told former Cliburn Foundation president Richard Rodzinski that he visualized the Tchaikovsky concerto as an o
pera, with the libretto and singers’ parts worked out, and staged it in his mind as he played; interview with the author, June 27, 2014. Van described the imaginary scenes in Wayne Lee Gay, “Cliburn’s Tour Includes Old Russian Friends,” Washington Sunday Times, August 21, 1994.

  154as he had never played in his life: Van thought so, too. “I genuinely felt at that moment that God’s blessing had descended upon me,” he recalled nearly a half century later. “I played like I never did again in my life.” “‘Vanya’ Cliburn: Popular Does Not Mean Good.”

  154one-act opera: The view is ascribed to Van in “The Reluctant Virtuoso,” Time, July 25, 1994.

  155“Just like Rachmaninoff”: Madigan, “‘The Texan Who Conquered Russia.’”

  155“Genius! Genius!”: “Texan in Moscow,” Time, April 21, 1958. Max Frankel also recorded Goldenweiser’s comment in “Russians Cheer U.S. Pianist, 23,” NYT, April 12, 1958.

  156“Oh my dear boy”: CCCP&C, 47.

  156cordons collapsed: So recalled the pianist Alexander Solbodyanik in VC, 118.

  156“We were mistaken”: “‘Vanya’ Cliburn: Popular Does Not Mean Good.”

  157students had already written in “VAN CLIBURN”: The usual version is that Van’s name had been added in large letters in a single hand, but Nina Lelchuk, who was present, recalled that many students wrote his name in. “Chudo po imeni Van Klaybern: Na smert Van Klayberna,” Sem iskusstv 5, no. 43 (May 2013), 7iskusstv.com/2013/Nomer5/Leichuk1.php.

  157hushed up: VC, 118; and Vladimir Ashkenazy, interview with the author. Ashkenazy still rates Van’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto no. 3 as the greatest he has heard.

  157piano-mad schoolgirls: Elena Klepikova, “Triumf i molchanie Vana Kliburna” (Triumph and Silence of Van Cliburn), Russkiy Bazar, April 17, 2008, http://russian-bazaar.com/ru/content/12287.htm.

  157Tanya Kryukova: F.45, dm16No185/62, SHM. On the top of the envelope (no. 63) Kryukova wrote, “Quick, quick, quick!!!”

  157maid at a Moscow institution: Shtilman, “In That Memorable April.”