Van Cliburn, 50 Years On

“Cliburn’s evergreen fame has had to be more than he bargained for, if only because it was unprecedented: No pianist before or since has had a ticker-tape parade in New York City. Such fortunes alighted upon what initially seemed to be an all-American boy, born in Louisiana and raised in Texas, who, as time went on, came to look more like a gifted, Deep South eccentric from an early Truman Capote short story.”