Van Cliburn’s legendary 1958 performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no.1 with Kirill Kondrashin conducting the RCA Symphony Orchestra (New York Philharmonic Orchestra?) still remains remarkably fresh as if it had only just recently been recorded live in concert. This was his first recording on returning to the US from winning the first Moscow Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in March 1958 and it became the first classical record ever to sell over a million copies.

Deep in the heart of the Cold War, there was once a miracle in Moscow – Texas-based classical pianist Van Cliburn, of whom no one had heard, conquered at the First Tchaikovsky Competition, an event set aside to showcase Soviet talent. Cliburn was warned by his own government not to go, given the tense political relationship between the United States and Soviet Union at the time, and once he arrived he was greeted as a party crasher, subject to hostile stares and animosity of the kind he had never dreamed of back in Texas. And it was Cliburn, at the end, which brought down the house, and held the award. Back in America, he was greeted with a ticker tape parade and was the subject of a best-selling biography by Abram Chasins, The Van Cliburn Story, copies of which continue to clog the shelves of American thrift stores five decades hence. Ultimately, though, Cliburn's celebrity lost its luster. Nerves, ultra-picky perfectionism, and mishandling by management led to his early retirement from the concert scene; his greatest latter-day achievement being the force behind the Van Cliburn Piano Competition, America's most prestigious such event.