Piano Wars

THE WORLD RENOWNED van cliburn piano combat is staged every few years in ft worth, and is currently entering the final rounds, with all but the best of the best having been sent packing. In the past thirty years, only a couple of americans have made it past the quarter finals of the fifty year old warfare, and they both had oriental names.

Van Cliburn himself pulled off the most remarkable upset in the history of piano wars, when in 1958 he came out on top in the prestigious Tchaikovsky contest, which was intended by the russians to demonstrate the superiority of soviet socialist culture over american decadant capitalist classical concert piano playing.

The young van cliburn, in 1958 in moscow, was simply the very best, and the russian judges, who had been warned about giving a break to an american, gave the texan kid first place, which immediately drew fire from communist party officials, who threatend the judges with siberian exile if they didn't reconsider, and give first place to a russian.

The judges refused to compromise their integrity, and party officials took the matter to the big dog, soviet dictator nitkta khrushchev, who bluntly asked: "is the american the best piano player"?  Looking at the floor, a flunky said "so say the judges". Khrushshev, not a patient man, repeated: "answer my question; is the american the best piano player?"  "yes", said the flunky.  "Then give him the goddamned trophy!" yelled the premier.

Humans, and especially americans, can turn any activity, no matter how inherently non competitive, into competition. Eating, drinking, music, even bleeding. Once, while donating blood at a high school, I raced a bunch of high schoolers to the top of the blood bag. I won, and thus struck a blow for middle aged american spirit.

"competition is for race horses" quoted virtuoso pianist felix mendelsohn, in turning down competitive opportunities. Combat is indeed for racehorses, and another high strung, combative animal called homo sapiens.