DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN (December 9, 2020)
During the Cold War Era, the USA and the USSR came very close to both war and mutual nuclear annihilation. The two countries were founded on two entirely different systems of government. But each were founded in order to break free of the colonial system, and both, though sometimes characterized as uncivilized, bore high standards of classical culture.
Just what role such a high standard of classical culture played in avoiding war, is both intangible, yet at the same concrete.
A TIMELINE
1956:
The launching of the Soviet satellite Sputnik caused an international uproar. Six months later, American pianist Van Cliburn entered the First International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
The story of the Tchaikovsky competition is told as follows: the jury panel included pianist Sviataslav Richter, Lev Oberon, the composer Kabalevsky, and was chaired by pianist Emil Gilels, and overall supervised by composer Dmitri Shostakovitch. Some of the jury had preselected a Russian pianist, Lev Vlasenko to win. But Cliburn's playing was upsetting the fixed order.
When some jurors started rigging things for Vlasenko, Richter responded by awarding Cliburn perfect scores, and others zeros to counter the rigging. There was a fear in the jury of giving the award to an American. Gilels nervously approached General Secretary Kruschev about the matter. Kruschev asked, "Is he the best?" On behalf of the jury, Gilels said "Yes." Kruschev replied, "Then give him the award."
Here is Cliburn's award winning performance. For such giants as Richter, Gilels, and Shostakovitch to grant the award to an American, demonstrates, in our eyes, a degree of honesty on their parts.
Chairman Gilels, himself a great pianist, embraced Van Cliburn onstage, after his victory. Two great nations discovered that they had a rich classical tradition that supercedes political tensions.
The Russian people loved Van Cliburn, and he reciprocated. Van Cliburn returned to the US for the first ticker tape parade ever given for a classical musician. He spoke humbly:
“I appreciate more than you will ever know that you are honoring me, but the thing that thrills me the most is that you are honoring classical music. Because I'm only one of many. I'm only a witness and a messenger. Because I believe so much in the beauty, the construction, the architecture invisible, the importance for all generations, for young people to come that it will help their minds, develop their attitudes, and give them values. That is why I'm so grateful that you have honored me in that spirit.”
September 1959:
Soviet Premier made a tense visit to the USA, after an earlier visit to the USSR by vice-president Nixon.
The earlier friendliness engraved by classical art endured. In 1960, Cliburn was booked for a June concert in in Baku, Azerbaijan. One month before, American pilot Gary Powers was captured and his U2 spy-plane was shot down. Diplomatic ties were broken. President Eisenhower cancelled a state visit, but Khrushchev surprised everyone with a directive to proceed with the concert. Kruschchev had become a fan of the pianist.
That same year, 1960, Russian pianist Sviataslav Richter, who had voted for Cliburn's victory, performed an all-Beethoven concert in Carnegie Hall. Soon after, Cliburn brought Russian conductor Kiril Kondrashin to conduct in the USA, the first time a Russian conductor had done so.
Van Cliburn returned to the USSR in 1962, before the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted. Khrushchev was in the audience smiling. Here is a beautiful video of the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 from that concert, with Kiril Kondrashin conducting:
October of 1962:
The "Missile Crisis" erupted. We shall never know how much of a role the cementing of such cultural exchanges played in war avoidance, but we feel its presence.
President Kennedy is universally praised for his restraint and opposition to military hardheads. There are Europeans who also praised Kruschev's role in resisting the same militaristic tendencies in his own country. Fidel Castro was reported to have been furious with Kruschev for withdrawing the missiles without Cuban consent, and is even said to have urged him to launch them all.
If you know that your supposed enemy shares a love of a rich cultural tradition, you might not think of him as a barbarian, and might be less eager to wipe each other out.
Here is Sviataslav Richter, live at Carnegie Hall in 1960, performing a beautiful, and extremely vocal rendition of the slow movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.3 in C Major, Op.2 No.3
We would do well today, to remember this beautiful dialogue between cultures.