THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 12, 1994 TAG: 9408120580
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
A 156-voice choir and an 88-piece orchestra performed Saturday at funeral services in Fort Worth, Texas, for Rildia Bee O'Bryan Cliburn, 97.
She was mother, best friend, manager, and first teacher of pianist Van Cliburn. He won America's heart when the Soviets judged him best in the 1958 Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow.
A memorable sight was roly-poly Nikita Khrushchev rushing toward the tall youth with a dandelion puffball of blond curls.
It astounded us that the Soviets hadn't rigged it for one of their own. Thanks to their appreciation, Van Cliburn became an idol of even those of us whose musical taste stops at ``Chopsticks.''
Not long after conquering Moscow, he came to Norfolk - and on stage in a rapid stroll, leonine head slightly back, riding broad shoulders, hands big as fielders' mitts.
He sat well back from the keyboard, tails from his formal suit dropping straight behind him, folded wings on a stately insect, a praying mantis. He ate up that piano.
He drew a standing ovation and a second crowd at his dressing room. Inside, he had time for one question: his first musical memory.
``When I was 3, I remember playing the piano, but before that I remember hearing music. I don't remember any day in my life that there wasn't music. When I was 5 I told the family I wanted to be a concert pianist.''
His mother had worked on a committee to bring Rachmaninoff to Shreveport. ``I had heard his recording on the phonograph, you know, the old Victrola. Even then I knew, I could feel his great presence.''
Soon after Rachmaninoff's visit, the child announced at lunch: ``I want more than anything else to be a concert pianist.''
The family pooh-poohed the notion. His father wanted him to be a doctor. His mother, whose own parents forbade her to become a concert pianist ``wanted me to be whatever I wanted to be.''
After the Norfolk concert, Van Cliburn went out to sign autographs in the admiring throng, talking easily, looking down from a great height with amused blue eyes. In the dressing room his mother recalled how she first heard him play.
``I dismissed my pupil for the day and went in the kitchen, when I heard the piece being played again - it was Crawford's `Arpeggio Waltz' - and I went back in to tell the boy he could go, and it was Van.''
She told the 3-year-old: ``It shows talent that you have the ear to play by rote, but you can learn to play yourself.''
And proceeded to teach him.
In the eulogy Saturday, broadcaster Paul Harvey said that, before going on his most recent concert to Denver, Van Cliburn prayed as usual with his mother, but for the first time she added to the prayer: ``God make Van brave.''
With such a one, he couldn't help but be. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Pianist Van Cliburn said his mother ``wanted me to be whatever I
wanted to be.''
by CNB