Cliburn & The Crowds

The melee at the gate to New York's Lewisohn Stadium looked like the running of the bulls at Pamplona. With elbow, knee and hip, the lovers of the arts and the avid curious jostled and shoved in a wild struggle to get inside. Those who failed craned their necks over the fences or peered from apartment house windows more than a block away. Inside, early arrivals snatched all available folding chairs, forcing many a reserved-seat ticket holder to hunker on the ground. The scene was an impressive if chaotic tribute to the continuing musical phenomenon known as Van Cliburn.

The Lewisohn concerts have had a bad summer at the box office, only once filling better than half the seats. But Pianist Cliburn's appearance there last week--his first in New York at popular prices in more than a year--drew a capacity 20,000, proving that three years after his Moscow triumph he still commands a movie-fan idolatry rare among longhairs. His ardently romantic manner of playing the piano is only part of the appeal; Cliburn also obviously enjoys crowds and loves applause and has a showman's sure instinct for using his gifts. At Lewisohn, Showman Cliburn was in peak form.

Scheduled to come on during the second half of the program to play the Rachmaninoff Concerto No. I (which, along with the Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 3, is still his big showpiece), Cliburn artfully delayed his appearance for several suspenseful minutes after the lights went down. Finally he strode boyishly out, all arms, to thunderous applause.

Expertly supported by Conductor Vladimir Golschmann, Cliburn shaped a characteristic performance--simple, water-clear, eloquent in every detail. And it brought an ovation. As the orchestra was packing its instruments, Cliburn reappeared to play an encore--Chopin's A-flat Polonaise. Then another, Rachmaninoff's Etude Tableau. The orchestra left for the night, but the audience stayed on. Cliburn played Albeniz' Eritana. He walked offstage and came back again, smiling and bowing. At last he stole a look at the piano, walked over to it. put a hand on it and--to another burst of gratified cheers --rippled into Chopin's Etude No. 3.

In the past year, Cliburn has crisscrossed the U.S., visited Mexico and made his second triumphant tour of Russia, rarely playing to anything but sellouts. Cliburn is something of a prisoner of his success: a man whose temperament and talent favors the romantic, he has recorded Schumann. MacDowell, Prokofiev and Beethoven. But his audiences often demand Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. What he clearly needs to do now is learn the trick--invaluable to any artist--of occasionally saying no to the fans.

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