Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U. S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, along with American Decca's first president Jack Kapp and American Decca president Milton Rackmil. In 1937, anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca and the link between the UK and U. S. Decca labels was broken for several decades; the British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre. Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group, owned by Vivendi, a media conglomerate headquartered in Paris, France; the US Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG. The name "Decca" was coined by Wilfred S. Samuel by merging the word "Mecca" with the initial D of their logo "Dulcet" or their trademark "Dulcephone". Samuel, a linguist, chose "Decca" as a brand name; the name dates back to a portable gramophone called the "Decca Dulcephone" patented in 1914 by musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel and Sons.
That company was renamed the Decca Gramophone Co. Ltd. and sold to former stockbroker Edward Lewis in 1929. Within years, Decca Records Ltd. was the second largest record label in the world, calling itself "The Supreme Record Company". Decca continued to run it under that name. In the 1950s the American Decca studios were located in the Pythian Temple in New York City. In classical music, Decca had a long way to go from its modest beginnings to catch up with the established HMV and Columbia labels; the pre-war classical repertoire on Decca was select. The 3-disc 1929 recording of Delius's Sea Drift, arising from the Delius Festival that year, suffered by being crammed onto six sides, being indifferently recorded and expensive. However, it won Decca the loyalty of the baritone Roy Henderson, who went on to record for them the first complete Dido and Aeneas of Purcell with Nancy Evans and the Boyd Neel ensemble. Heinrich Schlusnus made important pre-war lieder recordings for Decca. Decca's emergence as a major classical label may be attributed to three concurrent events: the emphasis on technical innovation, the introduction of the long-playing record, the recruitment of John Culshaw to Decca's London office.
Decca released the stereo recordings of Ernest Ansermet conducting L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, including, in 1959, the first stereo LP album of the complete Nutcracker, as well as Ansermet's only stereo version of Manuel de Falla's The Three-Cornered Hat, which the conductor had led at its first performance in 1919. John Culshaw, who joined Decca in 1946 in a junior post became a senior producer of classical recordings, he revolutionised recording -- in particular. Hitherto, the practice had been to put microphones in front of the performers and record what they performed. Culshaw was determined to make recordings that would be'a theatre of the mind', making the listener's experience at home not second best to being in the opera house, but a wholly different experience. To that end he got the singers to move about in the studio as they would onstage, used discreet sound effects and different acoustics, recorded in long continuous takes, his skill, coupled with Decca engineering, took Decca into the first flight of recording companies.
His pioneering recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen conducted by Georg Solti was a huge artistic and commercial success. Solti recorded throughout his career for Decca, made more than 250 recordings, including 45 complete opera sets. Among the international honours given Solti for his recordings were 31 Grammy awards – more than any other recording artist, whether classical or popular. In the wake of Decca's lead, artists such as Herbert von Karajan, Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti were keen to join the company's roster. However, Culshaw was speaking, not the first to do this. In 1951, Columbia Records executive Goddard Lieberson partnered with Broadway conductor Lehman Engel to record a series of unrecorded Broadway musical scores for Columbia Masterworks, including what Engel, in his book The American Musical Theatre: A Consideration, termed "Broadway opera", in 1951, they released the most complete Porgy and Bess recorded up to that time. Far from being a mere rendering of the score, the 3-LP album set used sound effects to realistically recreate the production as if the listener were watching a stage performance of the work.
Until 1947, American Decca issued British Decca classical music recordings. Afterwards, British Decca took over distribution through its new American subsidiary London Records. American Decca re-entered the classical music field in 1950 with distribution deals from Deutsche Grammophon and Parlophone. American Decca began issuing its own classical music recordings in 1956 when Israel Horowitz joined Decca to head its classical music operations. To further American Decca's dedication to serious music, in August of 1950, Rackmill announced the release of a new series of disks to be known as the "Decca Gold Label Series", to be devoted to "symphonies, chamber music, opera and choral music." American and European arti
Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte is an American singer, songwriter and actor. One of the most successful Jamaican-American pop stars in history, he was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s, his breakthrough album Calypso is the first million-selling LP by a single artist. Belafonte is best known for singing "The Banana Boat Song", with its signature lyric "Day-O", he has recorded in many genres, including blues, gospel, show tunes, American standards. He has starred in several films, most notably in Otto Preminger's hit musical Carmen Jones, Island in the Sun, Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow. Belafonte was an early supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s confidants. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for political and humanitarian causes, such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement and USA for Africa. Since 1987, he has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In recent years, he has been a vocal critic of the policies of the George W. Bush presidential administrations.
Harry Belafonte now acts as the American Civil Liberties Union celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues. Belafonte has won three Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, an Emmy Award, a Tony Award. In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994. In 2014, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy's 6th Annual Governors Awards. In March 2014, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in Boston. Belafonte was born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. at Lying-in Hospital on March 1, 1927, in Harlem, New York, the son of Melvine, a housekeeper, Harold George Bellanfanti Sr. who worked as a chef. His mother was born in the child of a Scottish white mother and a black father, his father was born in Jamaica, the child of a black mother and Dutch Jewish father of Sephardi origins. Belafonte has described his grandfather, whom he never met, as "a white Dutch Jew who drifted over to the islands after chasing gold and diamonds, with no luck at all".
From 1932 to 1940, he lived with one of his grandmothers in her native country of Jamaica, where he attended Wolmer's Schools. When he returned to New York City, he attended George Washington High School after which he joined the Navy and served during World War II. In the 1940s, he was working as a janitor's assistant in NYC when a tenant gave him, as a gratuity, two tickets to see the American Negro Theater, he fell in love with the art form and met Sidney Poitier. The financially struggling pair purchased a single seat to local plays, trading places in between acts, after informing the other about the progression of the play. At the end of the 1940s, he took classes in acting at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator alongside Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis, Walter Matthau, Bea Arthur, Sidney Poitier, while performing with the American Negro Theatre, he subsequently received a Tony Award for his participation in the Broadway revue John Murray Anderson's Almanac.
Belafonte started his career in music as a club singer in New York to pay for his acting classes. The first time he appeared in front of an audience, he was backed by the Charlie Parker band, which included Charlie Parker himself, Max Roach and Miles Davis, among others. At first, he was a pop singer, launching his recording career on the Roost label in 1949, but he developed a keen interest in folk music, learning material through the Library of Congress' American folk songs archives. With guitarist and friend Millard Thomas, Belafonte soon made his debut at the legendary jazz club The Village Vanguard. In 1952, he received a contract with RCA Victor. Belafonte's first released single, which went on to become his "signature" song with audience participation in all his live performances, was "Matilda", recorded April 27, 1953, his breakthrough album Calypso became the first LP in the world "to sell over 1 million copies within a year", Belafonte said on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's The Link program on August 7, 2012.
He added that it was the first million-selling album in England. The album is number four on Billboard's "Top 100 Album" list for having spent 31 weeks at number 1, 58 weeks in the top ten, 99 weeks on the U. S. charts. The album introduced American audiences to calypso music, Belafonte was dubbed the "King of Calypso", a title he wore with reservations since he had no claims to any Calypso Monarch titles. One of the songs included in the album is the now famous "Banana Boat Song", which reached number five on the pop charts, featured its signature lyric "Day-O", his other smash hit was "Jump in the Line". Many of the compositions recorded for Calypso, including "Banana Boat Song" and "Jamaica Farewell", gave songwriting credit to Irving Burgie. While known for calypso, Belafonte has recorded in many different genres, including blues, gospel, show tunes, American standards, his second-most popular hit, which came after "The Banana Boat Song", was the comedic tune "Mama Look at Bubu" known as "Mama Look a Boo-Boo", in which he sings humorously about misbehaving and disrespectful children.
It reached number eleven on the pop chart. In 1959, he starred in Tonight With Belafonte, a nationally televised special that featured Odetta, who sang "Water Boy" and wh
George Formby
George Formby, was an English actor, singer-songwriter and comedian who became known to a worldwide audience through his films of the 1930s and 1940s. On stage and record he sang light, comical songs playing the ukulele or banjolele, became the UK's highest-paid entertainer. Born in Wigan, Lancashire, he was the son of George Formby Sr, from whom he took his stage name. After an early career as a stable boy and jockey, Formby took to the music hall stage after the early death of his father in 1921, his early performances were taken from his father's act, including the same songs and characters. In 1923 he made two career-changing decisions – he purchased a ukulele, married Beryl Ingham, a fellow performer who became his manager and transformed his act, she insisted that he appear on stage formally dressed, introduced the ukulele to his performance. He started his recording career in 1926 and, from 1934, he worked in film to develop into a major star by the late 1930s and 1940s, became the UK's most popular entertainer during those decades.
The media historian Brian McFarlane writes that on film, Formby portrayed gormless Lancastrian innocents who would win through against some form of villainy, gaining the affection of an attractive middle-class girl in the process. During the Second World War Formby worked extensively for the Entertainments National Service Association, entertained civilians and troops, by 1946 it was estimated that he had performed in front of three million service personnel. After the war his career declined, although he toured the Commonwealth, continued to appear in variety and pantomime, his last television appearance was in December two weeks before the death of Beryl. He surprised people by announcing his engagement to a school teacher seven weeks after Beryl's funeral, but died in Preston three weeks at the age of 56. Formby's biographer, Jeffrey Richards, considers that the actor "had been able to embody Lancashire, the working classes, the people, the nation." Formby was considered Britain's first properly home-grown screen comedian.
He was an influence on future comedians—particularly Charlie Drake and Norman Wisdom—and, culturally, on entertainers such as the Beatles, who referred to him in their music. Since his death Formby has been the subject of five biographies, two television specials and two works of public sculpture. George Formby was born George Hoy Booth at 3 Westminster Street, Lancashire, on 26 May 1904, he was the eldest of seven surviving children born to James Lawler Booth and his wife Eliza, née Hoy, although this marriage was bigamous because Formby Sr was still married to his first wife, Martha Maria Salter, a twenty-year-old music hall performer. Booth was a successful music hall singer who performed under the name George Formby. Formby Sr suffered from a chest ailment, identified variously as bronchitis, asthma or tuberculosis, would use the cough as part of the humour in his act, saying to the audience, "Bronchitis, I'm a bit tight tonight", or "coughing better tonight". One of his main characters was that of John Willie, an "archetypal Lancashire lad".
In 1906 Formby Sr was earning £35 a week at the music halls, which rose to £325 a week by 1920, Formby grew up in an affluent home. Formby Sr was so popular that Marie Lloyd, the influential music hall singer and actress, would only watch two acts: his and that of Dan Leno. Formby was born blind owing to an obstructive caul, although his sight was restored during a violent coughing fit or sneeze when he was a few months old. After attending school—at which he did not prosper, did not learn to read or write—Formby was removed from formal education at the age of seven and sent to become a stable boy in Wiltshire and in Middleham, Yorkshire. Formby Sr sent his son away to work on stage. After a year working at Middleham, he was apprenticed to Thomas Scholfield at Epsom, where he ran his first professional races at the age of 10, when he weighed less than 4 stone. In 1915 Formby Sr allowed his son to appear on screen, taking the lead in By the Shortest of Heads, a thriller directed by Bert Haldane in which Formby played a stable boy who outwits a gang of villains and wins a £10,000 prize when he comes first in a horse race.
The film is now considered lost, with the last-known copy having been destroyed in 1940. In 1915, with the closure of the English racing season because of the First World War, Formby moved to Ireland where he continued as a jockey until November 1918; that month he returned to England and raced for Lord Derby at his Newmarket stables. Formby continued as a jockey until 1921. On 8 February 1921 Formby Sr succumbed to his bronchial condition and died, at the age of 45. After his father's funeral Eliza took the young Formby to London to help him cope with his grief. While there, they visited the Victoria Palace Theatre—where Formby Sr had been so successful—and saw a performance by the Tyneside comedian Tommy Dixon. Dixon was performing a copy of Formby Sr's act, using the same songs, jokes and mannerisms, billed himself as "The New George Formby", a name which angered Eliza and Formby more; the performance prompted Formby to follow in his father's profession, a decision, supported by Eliza. As he had never seen his father perform live, Formby found the imitation difficult
Spotify
Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming platform that provides DRM-protected music and podcasts from record labels and media companies. As a freemium service, basic features are free with advertisements or automatic music videos, while additional features, such as improved streaming quality, are offered via paid subscriptions. Launched by Spotify AB on 7 October 2008, Spotify provides access to over forty million tracks. Users can browse by parameters such as artist, album, or genre, can create and share playlists. Spotify is available in most of Europe and the Americas, New Zealand, parts of Africa and Asia, on most modern devices, including Windows, macOS, Linux computers, iOS, Windows Phone, Android smartphones and tablets; as of February 2019, it had 207 million monthly active users, including 96 million paying subscribers. Unlike physical or download sales, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the number of artists' streams as a proportion of total songs streamed.
It distributes 70% of total revenue to rights holders, who pay artists based on their individual agreements. Spotify has faced criticism from artists and producers including Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke, who have argued that it does not compensate musicians. In 2017, as part of its efforts to renegotiate license deals for an interest in going public, Spotify announced that artists would be able to make albums temporarily exclusive to paid subscriptions if they are part of Universal Music Group or the Merlin Network. Spotify AB is headquartered in Sweden. Since February 2018 it has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In September 2018, the company moved its New York offices to 4 World Trade Center. Spotify operates under a freemium business model. Spotify generates revenues by selling premium streaming subscriptions to users and advertising placements to third parties. In December 2013, the company launched a new website, "Spotify for Artists", that explained its business model and revenue data.
Spotify gets its content from major record labels as well as independent artists, pays copyright holders royalties for streamed music. The company pays 70% of its total revenue to rights holders. Spotify for Artists states that the company does not have a fixed per-play rate, instead considers factors such as the user's home country and the individual artist's royalty rate. Rights holders received an average per-play payout between $.006 and $.0084. Spotify offers an unlimited subscription package, close to the Open Music Model —estimated economic equilibrium—for the recording industry. However, the incorporation of digital rights management protection diverges from the OMM and competitors such as iTunes Store and Amazon Music that have dropped DRM. Spotify encourages people to pay with subscriptions as its main revenue source; the subscription removes advertisements and limits, increases song bitrates to 320 kbit/s. For example, in Norway, the figure of 1.2 billion unauthorized song downloads in 2008 is compared to a figure of 210 million from 2012.
BBC Music Week editor Tim Ingham wrote: "Unlike buying a CD or download, streaming is not a one-off payment. Hundreds of millions of streams of tracks are happening each and every day, which multiplies the potential revenues on offer – and is a constant long-term source of income for artists." As of November 2018, the three Spotify subscription types, all offering unlimited listening time, are: In March 2014, Spotify introduced a new, discounted Premium subscription tier for students. Students in the United States enrolled in a university can pay half-price for a Premium subscription. In April 2017, the Students offer was expanded to 33 more countries. Spotify introduced its Family subscription in October 2014, connecting up to five family members for a shared Premium subscription. Spotify Family was upgraded in May 2016, letting up to six people share a subscription and reducing the price. In November 2018, Spotify announced it is opening up Spotify Connect to all of the users using its Free service, however these changes still required products supporting Spotify Connect to support the latest SDK.
In 2007, just after launch, the company made a loss of 31.8 million Swedish kronor. In October 2010, Wired reported that Spotify was making more money for labels in Sweden than any other retailer "online or off". Years after growth and expansion, a November 2012 report suggested strong momentum for the company. In 2011, it reported a near US$60 million net loss from revenue of $244 million, while it was expected to generate a net loss of $40 million from revenue of $500 million in 2012. Another source of income was music purchases from within the app; this service was removed in January 2013. In May 2016, Spotify announced "Sponsored Playlists", a monetisation opportunity in which brands are able to specify the audiences they have in mind, with Spotify matching the marketer with suitable music in a playlist; that September, Spotify announced. In June 2017, as part of renegotiated licenses with Universal Music Group and Merlin Network, Spotify's financial filings revealed its agreement to pay more than $2 billion in minimum payments over the next two years.
As of 2017, Spotify was not yet a profitable company. In February 2010, Spotify received a small investment from Founders Fund, where board member Sean Parker was recruited to assist Spotify in "winning the labels over in the world's largest music market". In June 2011, Spotify secured $100 million of funding, planned to use this to support its US launch; the new round of funding valued the company at $1 billio
Music video
A music video is a short film that integrates a song with imagery, is produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. There are cases where songs are used in tie-in marketing campaigns that allow them to become more than just a song. Tie-ins and merchandising can be used for food or other products. Although the origins of the music video date back to musical short films that first appeared in the 1920s, they again came into prominence in the 1980s when the channel MTV based their format around the medium. Prior to the 1980s, these kinds of videos were described by various terms including "illustrated song", "filmed insert", "promotional film", "promotional clip", "promotional video", "song video", "song clip" or "film clip". Music videos use a wide range of styles and contemporary video-making techniques, including animation, live action and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film.
Some music videos combine different styles with the music, such as animation and live action. Combining these styles and techniques has become more popular because of the variety for the audience. Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the song's lyrics, while others take a more thematic approach. Other music videos may not have any concept, being a filmed version of the song's live concert performance. In 1894, sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song "The Little Lost Child". Using a magic lantern, Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances; this would become a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the first step toward music video. In 1926, with the arrival of "talkies" many musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts featured many bands and dancers. Animation artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which invited audiences to sing along to popular songs by "following the bouncing ball", similar to a modern karaoke machine.
Early 1930s cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons. The early animated films by Walt Disney, such as the Silly Symphonies shorts and Fantasia, which featured several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music; the Warner Bros. cartoons today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Bros. musical films. Live action musical shorts, featuring such popular performers as Cab Calloway, were distributed to theaters. Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period. Soundies and released from 1940 to 1947, were musical films that included short dance sequences, similar to music videos. In the mid-1940s, musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film, Lookout Sister.
These films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the "ancestors" of music video. Musical films were another important precursor to music video, several well-known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of the best-known examples is Madonna's 1985 video for "Material Girl", modelled on Jack Cole's staging of "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Several of Michael Jackson's videos show the unmistakable influence of the dance sequences in classic Hollywood musicals, including the landmark "Thriller" and the Martin Scorsese-directed "Bad", influenced by the stylised dance "fights" in the film version of West Side Story. According to the Internet Accuracy Project, disc jockey–singer J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson was the first to coin the phrase "music video", in 1959. In his autobiography, Tony Bennett claims to have created "...the first music video" when he was filmed walking along the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London in 1956, with the resulting clip being set to his recording of the song "Stranger in Paradise".
The clip was sent to UK and US television stations and aired on shows including Dick Clark's American Bandstand. The oldest example of a promotional music video with similarities to more abstract, modern videos seems to be the Czech "Dáme si do bytu" created in 1958 and directed by Ladislav Rychman. In the late 1950s the Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented in France and short films were produced by many French artists, such as Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy, Jacques Dutronc, the Belgian Jacques Brel to accompany their songs, its use spread to other countries, similar machines such as the Cinebox in Italy and Color-Sonic in the USA were patented. In 1961, for the Canadian show Singalong Jubilee, Manny Pittson began pre-recording the music audio, went on-location and taped various visuals with the musicians lip-synching edited the audio and video together. Most music numbers were taped in-studio on stage, the location shoot "videos" were to add variety. In 1964, Kenneth Anger's experimental short film, Scorpio Rising used popular songs instead of dialog.
In 1964, The Moody Blues producer, Alex Murray, wanted to promote his version of "Go Now". The short film clip he produced and directed to promote the single has a striking visual style that predates Queen's similar "Bohemian Rhapsody" vid
Van Cliburn
Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn Jr. was an American pianist who, at the age of 23, achieved worldwide recognition when he won the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958. Cliburn's mother, a piano teacher and an accomplished pianist in her own right, discovered him playing at age three, mimicking one of her students, she arranged. He developed a rich, round tone and a singing-voice-like phrasing, having been taught from the start to sing each piece. Cliburn toured overseas, he played for royalty, heads of state, every US president from Harry S. Truman to Barack Obama. Today, Cliburn’s contributions to society are many when it comes to that of the musical society. However, one of his biggest contributions is his Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Writer, Lisa McCormick for Sage Journals explains the competition as: Founded in 1958, the Cliburn is held every four years and is open to pianists between the ages of 18 and 30. Through screening auditions held in five cities around the world, 35 pianists are chosen to participate in the competition in Fort Worth, where their performances are open to the public and judged by a distinguished international jury.
Since its third cycle, the Cliburn has qualified to be a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions. 3 For many young pianists, Cliburn is not only a symbol of talent and inspiration, but a friend to the arts that shows how appreciation for music is powerful. His impact on the Cold War was one of distinct and unique merit, the lasting effects of the competition victory is something that has made a comeback today with a situation that American’s are well aware of day to day. In Roland B. Wilson’s Journal published with the School for Conflict and Resolution at George Mason University, we see just that, he writes about the potential of looking at America’s conflicts with North Korea as we viewed those with the Soviets and to make note of the impact music can have on situations marred by hate. “It is time the West, led by the U. S. shows true international leadership and initiative by considering alternative and multiple ways to defuse tensions, engage North Korea and end this conflict.
With this in mind, there are many FP and CAR tools that can be used to interact and engage with, positively influence North Korea, including the power of public diplomacy, non-governmental led cultural exchanges and peacebuilding approaches. These tools and recommendations will be discussed next in the context of complex interventions and if initiated, can positively affect change in and with North Korea in 2013 and beyond.” 4 Cliburn was born in Shreveport, the son of Rildia Bee and Harvey Lavan Cliburn Sr. At age three, he began taking piano lessons from his mother, who had studied under Arthur Friedheim, a pupil of Franz Liszt; when Cliburn was six, his father, who worked in the oil industry, moved the family to Kilgore, Texas near Longview. At age 12, he won a statewide piano competition, which enabled him to debut with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, he entered the Juilliard School in New York City at the age of seventeen and studied under Rosina Lhévinne, who trained him in the tradition of the great Russian romantics.
At age twenty, Cliburn made his debut at Carnegie Hall. Recognition in Moscow propelled Cliburn to international prominence; the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958 was an event designed to demonstrate Soviet cultural superiority during the Cold War, after the USSR's technological victory with the Sputnik launch in October 1957. Cliburn's performance at the competition finale of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 on April 13 earned him a standing ovation lasting eight minutes. When it was time to announce the winner, the judges were obliged to ask permission of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to give first prize to an American. "Is he the best?" Khrushchev asked. "Then give him the prize!" Cliburn returned home to a ticker-tape parade in New York City, the only time the honor has been accorded a classical musician. Arriving at City Hall after the parade, Cliburn told the audience:I appreciate more than you will 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 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, give them values. That is. A cover story in Time magazine proclaimed him "The Texan Who Conquered Russia". Upon returning to the United States, Cliburn appeared in a Carnegie Hall concert with the Symphony of the Air, conducted by Kirill Kondrashin, who had led the Moscow Philharmonic in the prize-winning performances in Moscow; the performance of the Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto at this concert was subsequently released by RCA Victor on LP. Cliburn was invited by Steve Allen to play a solo during Allen's prime time NBC television series on May 25, 1958, he went to the White House to meet with President Eisenhower to discuss relations with the USSR. RCA Victor signed him to an exclusive contract, his subsequent recording of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 won the 1958 Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance.
It was certified a gold record in 1961, it became the first classical album to go platinum, achieving that certification in 1989. It was the best-selling classical al
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 (Van Cliburn 1958 recording)
The Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 was the first recording of Van Cliburn in 1958 for RCA Victor. It won Cliburn a Grammy and was the first classical recording to go platinum, to sell more than a million copies; the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Kiril Kondrashin who at Cliburn's request had been allowed to leave Russia
