VAN CLIBURN’S GRAMMY AWARD WINNING PERFORMANCE

When I was a young boy my mother introduced me to classical music. The first album she bought was also the first Grammy award winning classical album, which included Van Cliburn’s performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1. The album was recorded at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1958. Twenty-three-year old Cliburn, who had recently won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958, performed a number of encore pieces that evening. One of them was written by Robert Schumann and arranged by Franz Liszt…and one of my favorites….it’s called “Widmung.” And if you listen carefully, you’ll hear some Schubert at the end. Here’s Cliburn’s Widmung