Post by PianoFixer on May 20, 2012 15:07:25 GMT -5
cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/for-sale-the-piano-van-cliburn-grew-up-with/?src=tp
May 15, 2012, 5:52 pm
For Sale: The Practice Piano That Made Van Cliburn Perfect
By JAMES BARRON
Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesVan Cliburn, the acclaimed pianist, is auctioning off the piano that he grew up playing in Texas.
Van Cliburn was reminiscing about No. 157754.
“My practice piano,†he said.
Not anymore. No. 157754, the 100-year-old Steinway concert grand that he grew up on, is — temporarily — at Christie’s in Rockefeller Center, where it is to be sold on Thursday, along with furniture and china he collected over the years.
Christie’s expects the piano to go for $40,000 to $60,000, less than half the price of a concert grand these days but far more than Mr. Cliburn’s parents paid for it, which would have been $1,600 if it had been new when they bought it.
But the piano was already 11 years old when his mother, Rildia Bee O’Bryan, married his father, Harvey Lavan Cliburn Sr., in 1923. The piano was 22 when Mr. Cliburn was born, in 1934. Steinway & Sons says it was manufactured at its factory in Queens in 1912, but was not released for shipment until Dec. 24, 1915.
Mr. Cliburn admired his mother as a pianist — she had “perfect hands,†he said on Monday, and was his only teacher until he was 17. She had studied with Arthur Friedheim, a Russian-born pianist who had briefly been a pupil of Anton Rubinstein before switching teachers.
And No. 157754? Steinway said the piano, identified by its six-digit serial number, first went to Galveston, Tex. That destination is something of a mystery, and the piano must have done some more traveling before it reached the Cliburns.
“Mother said she and Daddy got it in Dallas,†said Mr. Cliburn, whose family moved to Texas when he was 6. He plans to give the money from the sale to the Juilliard School and the Moscow Conservatory.
Steinway said the piano returned to the factory in New York in 1956, two years before Mr. Cliburn won the International Tchaikovsky Competition at age 23 and became an international sensation. A 40-year-old piano that had been played by two serious pianists — Mr. Cliburn and his mother — probably needed some freshening up under the lid, though Steinway’s records do not show what work was done.
No. 157754 was not the only thing Mr. Cliburn was reminiscing about during lunch on Monday and a visit to Christie’s on Tuesday.
He remembered living at the Osborne, the apartment building diagonally across West 57th Street from Carnegie Hall, going to a Horn & Hardart restaurant down the block and noticing that the person next to him was reading a newspaper article with the headline “Van Cliburn Signs Million-Dollar Contract.â€
Mr. Cliburn recalled flying to Moscow in 1958, on the way to the International Tchaikovsky Competition. He talked about having to play the first round, because the Tchaikovsky officials did not recognize the Leventritt award, which he won in 1954, as an international competition.
Had they put the Leventritt in that category, he could have skipped the first round in Moscow. Instead, he played both rounds in the competition.
He also reminisced about returning a cold-war hero: “I went over with two suitcases,†he said, “and came back with 17.†He said he bought some of the items in the Christie’s sale on the trip. “I had all these rubles,†he said.
He remembered playing a concert in Kansas City and having a backstage visitor at intermission: Harry S. Truman, the former president.
Mr. Cliburn was to play a Chopin sonata after the break and mentioned that it was not Sonata No. 2, the one with the famous funeral march. Truman, a pianist himself, said he knew perfectly well which one Mr. Cliburn was going to play.
“He said, ‘It’s the sonata in B minor, Op. 58 — I had such trouble with the development section,’†Mr. Cliburn said. “I had to go out and perform that thing right after that. I thought my heart would stop.â€
He told another story, about a photograph of Truman playing a piano. Mr. Cliburn said Truman had told him that a reporter asked if Truman was playing the “Missouri Waltz.â€
“He said, ‘Van, I needed the votes,’†Mr. Cliburn said, “‘and I wasn’t going to tell him I was really playing the Minuet in G by Paderewski.’â€
Mr. Cliburn also talked about the thrill of hearing Olga Kern’s 13-year-old son Vladimir play No. 157754 at Christie’s over the weekend. Ms. Kern, a concert pianist, won the gold medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Some people might have trouble parting with a beloved piano that was a fixture — in their living rooms if not in their lives — for so long.
But there are always other pianos. At one point in his life, Mr. Cliburn said, he owned 25.
May 15, 2012, 5:52 pm
For Sale: The Practice Piano That Made Van Cliburn Perfect
By JAMES BARRON
Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesVan Cliburn, the acclaimed pianist, is auctioning off the piano that he grew up playing in Texas.
Van Cliburn was reminiscing about No. 157754.
“My practice piano,†he said.
Not anymore. No. 157754, the 100-year-old Steinway concert grand that he grew up on, is — temporarily — at Christie’s in Rockefeller Center, where it is to be sold on Thursday, along with furniture and china he collected over the years.
Christie’s expects the piano to go for $40,000 to $60,000, less than half the price of a concert grand these days but far more than Mr. Cliburn’s parents paid for it, which would have been $1,600 if it had been new when they bought it.
But the piano was already 11 years old when his mother, Rildia Bee O’Bryan, married his father, Harvey Lavan Cliburn Sr., in 1923. The piano was 22 when Mr. Cliburn was born, in 1934. Steinway & Sons says it was manufactured at its factory in Queens in 1912, but was not released for shipment until Dec. 24, 1915.
Mr. Cliburn admired his mother as a pianist — she had “perfect hands,†he said on Monday, and was his only teacher until he was 17. She had studied with Arthur Friedheim, a Russian-born pianist who had briefly been a pupil of Anton Rubinstein before switching teachers.
And No. 157754? Steinway said the piano, identified by its six-digit serial number, first went to Galveston, Tex. That destination is something of a mystery, and the piano must have done some more traveling before it reached the Cliburns.
“Mother said she and Daddy got it in Dallas,†said Mr. Cliburn, whose family moved to Texas when he was 6. He plans to give the money from the sale to the Juilliard School and the Moscow Conservatory.
Steinway said the piano returned to the factory in New York in 1956, two years before Mr. Cliburn won the International Tchaikovsky Competition at age 23 and became an international sensation. A 40-year-old piano that had been played by two serious pianists — Mr. Cliburn and his mother — probably needed some freshening up under the lid, though Steinway’s records do not show what work was done.
No. 157754 was not the only thing Mr. Cliburn was reminiscing about during lunch on Monday and a visit to Christie’s on Tuesday.
He remembered living at the Osborne, the apartment building diagonally across West 57th Street from Carnegie Hall, going to a Horn & Hardart restaurant down the block and noticing that the person next to him was reading a newspaper article with the headline “Van Cliburn Signs Million-Dollar Contract.â€
Mr. Cliburn recalled flying to Moscow in 1958, on the way to the International Tchaikovsky Competition. He talked about having to play the first round, because the Tchaikovsky officials did not recognize the Leventritt award, which he won in 1954, as an international competition.
Had they put the Leventritt in that category, he could have skipped the first round in Moscow. Instead, he played both rounds in the competition.
He also reminisced about returning a cold-war hero: “I went over with two suitcases,†he said, “and came back with 17.†He said he bought some of the items in the Christie’s sale on the trip. “I had all these rubles,†he said.
He remembered playing a concert in Kansas City and having a backstage visitor at intermission: Harry S. Truman, the former president.
Mr. Cliburn was to play a Chopin sonata after the break and mentioned that it was not Sonata No. 2, the one with the famous funeral march. Truman, a pianist himself, said he knew perfectly well which one Mr. Cliburn was going to play.
“He said, ‘It’s the sonata in B minor, Op. 58 — I had such trouble with the development section,’†Mr. Cliburn said. “I had to go out and perform that thing right after that. I thought my heart would stop.â€
He told another story, about a photograph of Truman playing a piano. Mr. Cliburn said Truman had told him that a reporter asked if Truman was playing the “Missouri Waltz.â€
“He said, ‘Van, I needed the votes,’†Mr. Cliburn said, “‘and I wasn’t going to tell him I was really playing the Minuet in G by Paderewski.’â€
Mr. Cliburn also talked about the thrill of hearing Olga Kern’s 13-year-old son Vladimir play No. 157754 at Christie’s over the weekend. Ms. Kern, a concert pianist, won the gold medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Some people might have trouble parting with a beloved piano that was a fixture — in their living rooms if not in their lives — for so long.
But there are always other pianos. At one point in his life, Mr. Cliburn said, he owned 25.