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Competition Blog Archives
Competition Blog posts insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domain of the competition facet of life. Competition-Blog: Piano-Competition News Van Cliburn celebrates 50th anniversary of legendary piano competition: February 29, 2008 by SCOTT CANTRELL
Fifty years ago, Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House, Nikita Khrushchev newly installed at the Kremlin. With Europe rebuilding from World War II devastation, the superpowers were locked in a deadly Cold War dance, shadowed by the atomic bomb and the newly launched satellite Sputnik. The 1958 launch in Moscow of the International Tchaikovsky Competition, for pianists and violinists, wasn't innocent of propaganda agendas. Given Russia's grand legacy of musical virtuosos, it was expected to be a showcase for Soviet cultural superiority. To worldwide astonishment, though, the first prize in piano went to a gangly, drawling 23-year-old Texan. So loaded had the contest been that Van Cliburn's award had to be approved by Khrushchev himself. Overnight, the 6-foot-4 Mr. Cliburn was the world's most famous musician–the American Idol of his day, but much more so. His open-faced, all-American good looks were splashed across newspapers and magazines – and then-new television screens – around the world. A Time magazine cover hailed the "Texan Who Conquered Russia." He returned to a ticker-tape parade in New York. The 50th anniversary of Mr. Cliburn's legendary triumph is being celebrated Saturday in Fort Worth, where the pianist has lived since 1986. Invitation-only festivities will be held on the grounds of the Kimbell Art Museum, in a custom tent evoking a grand Russian palace, complete with chandeliers and damask linens. Competition Blog Comment:
Is an art competition something different from winning a war of national pride? It was not Van Cliburn who was important when he won the piano competition, it was the national pride of America that had won the war over that of Russia; which was! United States of America had registered a political (!) victory over her staunch rival Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is no more there, as it died its inevitable death long back in 1991. But the proud memories of the political victory registered a long 50 years back are still looming large in the air! Nothing has actually changed in the past half century as far as the warring mind-set is concerned. Shall we change it when even the USA is wiped off the map of the world owing to its own contradictions like the USSR did?
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