Word: cliburn
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Dates: during 1958-1958
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...Cliburn, 23, blazed through the opening round of the first Tchaikovsky International Piano and Violin Festival with 49 other pianists from 19 countries, and his twelve-note span carried him triumphantly through the second round. By then the town's elite was on its ear. To hear him in the finals, standees jammed the aisles in the Moscow Conservatory's deep balconies. Soldiers held back enthusiastic crowds in the street outside. To the hundreds of callers who asked for tickets, the Conservatory's box office had a standard reply: "Cliburn is playing tonight; call back tomorrow...
Despite a bandaged index finger (which he had cut during a grueling rehearsal), Cliburn displayed the tautly controlled technique, the steel-fingered power and booming romantic style that had dazzled audiences in the opening rounds. Toward the end of the rondo, a piano string snapped under his bold percussive attack. He piled through the rest of the piece without faltering, rose after the final Rachmaninoff to one of the most thunderous ovations ever accorded an artist in Moscow...