Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story; How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War

This book examines one of the most iconic moments of the Cold War: Van Cliburn's (born Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn Jr.) 1958 victory in the piano contest at the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Historian and critic Cliff (The Shakespeare Riots) combines biography and history, telling the story of the small-town Texas boy and his improbable triumph, as well as the larger history of Soviet-American relations. Cliburn's career intersected in an unusual way with events in the Soviet Union, and he had a warm relationship with many Russians, including Nikita Khrushchev. Cliburn played for U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon, often at official state functions, and by request for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, during the 1987 Ronald Reagan-Gorbachev summit. Some writing on Cliburn (such as Howard Reich's The Van Cliburn Story) tend toward hagiography, but Cliff presents a sympathetic yet rounded portrait of the pianist—devout Baptist, devotee of astrology, conservative yet gay, a builder of international goodwill but often politically naïve. Cliff's sources include many Russian-language materials.