When the World Stopped to Listen
Van Cliburn’s Cold War Triumph and Its Aftermath
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Narrated by:
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Stefan Rudnicki
About this listen
April of 1958 - the Iron Curtain was at its heaviest, and the outcome of the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition seemed preordained. Nonetheless, as star musicians from across the globe descended on Moscow, an unlikely favorite emerged: Van Cliburn, a polite, lanky Texan whose passionate virtuosity captured the Russian spirit.
This is the story of what unfolded that spring - for Cliburn and the other competitors, jurors, party officials, and citizens of the world who were touched by the outcome. It is a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most remarkable events in musical history, filled with political intrigue and personal struggle as artists strove for self-expression and governments jockeyed for prestige. And, at the core of it all: the value of artistic achievement, the supremacy of the heart, and the transcendent freedom that can be found, through music, even in the darkest moments of human history.
©2017 Stuart Isacoff (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a vivid, full-bodied portrait of one of the most influential artists of the 20th-century - a man widely regarded as the most important lyricist America has ever produced. Acclaimed poet and biographer Daniel Mark Epstein frames Dylan against the backdrop of four seminal concerts - all of which he attended. Beautifully written, The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a unique, eye-opening portrait of an artist who has transformed generations and continues to inspire and surprise today.
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Excellent book, excellent narration
- By L chandler on 12-22-11
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Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
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This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
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The Walrus and the Elephants
- John Lennon’s Years of Revolution
- By: James A. Mitchell
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In late 1971 John Lennon left London behind and moved to New York, eager to join a youth movement rallying for social justice and an end to the Vietnam War. Lennon was quickly embraced by radicals and revolutionaries, the hippies and Yippies at odds with the establishment. Settling in Greenwich Village, the heart of Manhattan's counterculture, the former Beatle was soon on the frontlines of the antiwar movement and championing a range of causes and issues.
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I wish you were still here
- By Kazuhiko on 12-09-13
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Bright lights dark shadows
- The real story of Abba
- By: Carl Palm
- Narrated by: Adrian Mulraney
- Length: 26 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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An exploration of all aspects of the Abba member’s lives and careers. Amazingly detailed, it examines the group member’s family backgrounds, the pre-Abba days, the legendary 70s, the marriages, the divorces, the business ups and downs, and the post-Abba solo careers.
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Awesome! -- All the Swedish words pronounced!
- By Howard_a on 06-18-12
By: Carl Palm
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Paul McCartney
- A Life
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of the definitive biography of former Beach Boy Brian Wilson offers new insight into the life and music of Paul McCartney, one of the world's most popular and influential musicians. Informed by new, exclusive interviews with friends, bandmates, and collaborators, the book describes McCartney's many triumphs as well as his failures, from the Beatles era through his decade with Wings and his subsequent solo career.
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Great...But
- By Diego on 05-02-10
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Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?
- Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock
- By: Gregory Alan Thornbury
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1969, in Capitol Records' Hollywood studio, a blonde-haired troubadour named Larry Norman laid track for an album that would launch a new genre of music and one of the strangest, most interesting careers in modern rock. Having spent the bulk of the 1960s playing on bills with acts like The Who, Janis Joplin, and The Doors, Norman decided that he wanted to sing about the most countercultural subject of all: Jesus.
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Hagiography not Biography
- By Keith Howard on 10-29-18
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Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- By: Jay Parini
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
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Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
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When Paris Sizzled
- The 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and Their Friends
- By: Mary McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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When Paris Sizzled vividly portrays the City of Light during the fabulous 1920s, les Annees folles, when Parisians emerged from the horrors of war to find that a new world greeted them - one that reverberated with the hard metallic clang of the assembly line, the roar of automobiles, and the beat of jazz. Mary McAuliffe traces a decade that saw seismic change on almost every front, from art and architecture to music, literature, fashion, entertainment, transportation, and, most notably, behavior.
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Informative, but no sizzle
- By OzEnigma on 06-01-17
By: Mary McAuliffe
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Butterfly in the Typewriter
- The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces
- By: Cory MacLauchlin
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.
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Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
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The Sound of Music Story
- How a Beguiling Young Novice, a Handsome Austrian Captain, and Ten Singing Von Trapp Children Inspired the Most Beloved Film of All Time
- By: Tom Santopietro
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Now Tom Santopietro has written the ultimate Sound of Music fan audiobook with all the inside dope, from behind-the-scenes stories of the filming in Austria and Hollywood to new interviews with Johannes von Trapp and others. Santopietro looks back at the real-life story of Maria von Trapp, goes on to chronicle the sensational success of the Broadway musical, and recounts the story of the near cancellation of the film when Cleopatra bankrupted 20th Century Fox.
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A must for super-fans
- By Simone on 07-29-17
By: Tom Santopietro
What listeners say about When the World Stopped to Listen
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- James Carl Barsz, MD
- 05-10-17
Inspirational biography of Van Cliburn
I am not a musician, nor a classical music devotee; I remembered the name of Van Cliburn, and am glad I read this book.
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- Donald
- 04-18-23
East Texas Takes Moscow - 1958
And then the ticker tape in New York City. Fiction can't be better than this. It should be a movie. High Noon meets The Russians are Coming.
I was born in 1947 and remember Cold War duck-and-cover drills in school, put in place during the Korean War and missile race. I remember the shock in this country of Sputnik and the early failures of the NASA program that left Americans thinking the Russians were winning the Cold War. And then . . . along came a 23 year old, lanky, modest Texan who showed the Russians how Russian music should sound. And it was done in the first Tchaikovsky piano competition in 1958, a competition established by the Russians to show their superiority in the arts.
Van Cliburn was trained by Russian emigres at the Juilliard during the 1950s. He learned the Russian powerful style of dramatic piano and mastered it blending it with exquisite timing bringing and emotional bouquet to his playing. Better than the Russians, who, according to the book, were playing more mechanically than the emotional renditions of Cliburn.
When he played Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto in the finals of the 1958 Tchaikovskyy competition in Moscow with Khruschev in the audience, he became the first to pubically play the more difficult version of the piece, thereby introducing one of the most difficult and beautiful piano concertos to a Russian audience as none had never heard it before. Not even Rachmoninoff played that more difficult version in his concert recordings, which is probably why his early recordings of the piece are shorter than Cliburns,
Enjoy listening to the book. Then listen to the piece being described on Utube with Cliburn playing. Especially listen to the recording of the Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano concerto from the 1958 competition. It is available through I-Tunes. And then listen to the narrative of what was going on in the audience, in the judges booth, on the stage.
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- Navigator
- 05-14-19
I Expected Better
As a professional musician from Texas, I was very interested in the subject of this book, Van Cliburn. While the focus of the book is the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958, the book provides a full biography of Van both before and after his earth-shattering win in Moscow. I must admit, however, that this book delves into details that I was less interested in: the bios of Van’s competitors, what the ambassador’s daughter ate at a reception in Moscow, etc. Others may be more interested in this level of detail. But what completely ruined this book for me was the narrator. Perhaps he was selected for this recording because of his ability to pronounce Russian names, but his other talents weren’t suited to this book. First, he has an extremely, almost unnaturally, low voice. I found this quite distracting, especially since most of the book centers on Van’s youth. I would have liked a higher, younger voice. I also thought his Texas accents were horrible, and his attempts to mimic historical figures fell flat. Other national accents fared no better and were inconsistent. The narrator had a bad habit of building to a point in a paragraph, then immediately segueing into the next paragraph without pause. This confused me, as the subject of the next sentence was unclear. Quotes frequently were not set off from the author’s commentary, so that I couldn’t tell what was quote from what was opinion. But the most unforgivable sin of this narrator was his mispronunciations of the names of historical figures. “Wreck-It-Ralph” Vaughn Williams and “Lang Lang” (take a guess) were bad enough, but Leonard Bern-STEEN was mentioned about twenty times, causing me to grind my teeth. In 2017, with all that has been written about how Bernstein changed the pronunciation of his name, with interviews and television appearances available, and within the living memory of those who knew him, making a professional recording and not using the correct pronunciation of Bern-STINE is unpardonable.
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