Briefly Noted

Moscow Nights, by Nigel Cliff (Harper). This biography of the Texan pianist Van Cliburn is also a cultural history of the event that made his name: his win at the Tchaikovsky Competition, in Moscow, in 1958, after the launch of the first Sputnik set off the space race. Cliff portrays Cliburn as a musical savant, full of contradictions—gay, staunchly religious, a lifelong Republican and Russophile. He was adored both in Russia and in the U.S., where his following rivalled Elvis Presley’s. Being a cultural emblem ultimately took a toll: audiences wanted endless rehashes of the pieces he was famous for, and he lacked the opportunity and the curiosity to take on new challenges. Cliff tracks this artistic decline sympathetically, and successfully evokes Cliburn’s intuitive musicianship.