When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn’s Cold War Triumph and Its Aftermath

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. (Apr.)