COMPOSERS: Schumann/Prokofiev
LABELS: RCA Living Stereo
WORKS: Piano Concerto in A minor; Piano Concerto No. 3
PERFORMER: Van Cliburn (piano); Chicago SO/Fritz Reiner, Walter Hendl
CATALOGUE NO: 09026 62691 2 ADD (1960)
This 1960 recording captures Van Cliburn at the height of his fame. As an American scooping the Tchaikovsky Competition first prize in Moscow at the height of the Cold War, Van Cliburn immediately became a national hero – though subsequently he removed himself from the concert scene for many years.
In the Schumann and Prokofiev concertos here, he gives performances which are deeply and sensitively expressive, with an appealing vitality and virility: powerful, solid and convincing, with a particularly fine sense of dialogue with the orchestra. The remastered sound is reasonably good, though there are moments of shrillness. Jessica Duchen