Close encounters with Van Cliburn

This morning I have a million things to do so I sit down with my coffee and get set to get started when ...

Work Avoidance 101: How is the concert pianist Stephen Hough doing these days?

Stephen H. keeps this Web log on the Telegraph -- you can find it at right, among my links -- that I love checking into now and then. So I check into his Web log. I am flipping around it, here and there, when I find this ancient thing he wrote on this little film clip of Van Cliburn returning from Moscow where he just won the Tchaikovsky Competition.

Wow, there is so much on YouTube, you know? And new things are appearing every day. You can peek at home movies of Rachmaninoff and Richard Tauber. You can watch cellist Lynn Harrell playing in his rec room. You can watch clips of Chico Marx playing the piano in movies. And these are just a few of the things I have chanced to discover as I wander through life wasting time and avoiding work.

Stephen Hough was charmed by the Van Cliburn clip and so am I.

If you get down in the comments on his Web log, which naturally I did -- I mean, what else do I have to do, you know? -- he mentions having had dinner with Cliburn at Tanglewood and what a charming and humble man he is. Having had my own encounters with Cliburn, I second that.

I would go as far as to say Cliburn is almost otherworldly. It is as if when it comes to privacy he has totally given up. He has come to recognize that he is public property. He is like Niagara Falls, is what I remember thinking. That little video shows the start of that. Practically his whole life, he has been noticed.

When I was down in Texas competing in his amateur pianist competition, he did not hide out, he got right in there among us. I was at his house twice. At his house you were free to wander around, look at whatever you wanted, he did not care. He was there smiling at you, ready to talk. He is kind of saintly and you find yourself feeling protective of him. Well, I did.

A couple of years ago there was this big deal about we were going to send the New York Philharmonic to North Korea, I think it was. The papers were saying that these musical ambassadors would do what Van Cliburn did years ago in Russia, that it would break down walls.

My husband, Howard, said what I am sure a lot of people were thinking.

He said, "Why don't we just send Van Cliburn?"

We should have!

Who can resist him?

The clarinetist's last bow

Neat story in the Wall Street Journal today by Barbara Jepson about 80-year-old Stanley Drucker. He is the principal clarinetist for the New York Philharmonic and he is stepping down after a million years. Isn't that a nifty ad I found featuring Drucker? That looks like a cigar he is holding!

Anyway, I enjoyed Barbara Jepson's story. There is only one thing I love more than reading stories about veteran musicians.

That is talking to veteran musicians myself!

Young musicians, they can be fun and relaxing to talk to. But it is not the same as being able to sit down with some old guy and ask, "So, what was it like, performing with Dimitri Mitropoulos?"

That is the greatest!

That is why I loved my experience with Leonard Pennario. Months of just us, sitting around like Calvin and Hobbes. No wife to get in my way. "Leonard, what was it like, playing with Leopold Stokowski?"

Talk about fun!

There is a poignant note in the WSJ story where Drucker talks about how some younger musicians were grumbling that he should retire so a younger musician could have his job. That is a nasty way of thinking. I think just for that he should stay on the job for another five years.

Anyone remember Saffire, the Uppity Blues Women, and how they spoofed that Whitney Houston "I Will Always Love You"...

If I should stay
I would only be in the wa---ayy...
SO I'M GONNA STAY...

Someone should play that for Stanley Drucker.

It might not be too late for him to change his mind!