Sunday Selections

Trudging up Tunica
I decided to venture up north today and escape "The Rouge" for a little while to do a little hiking and running. I had heard from some passing conversations with other runners about running hills in Southeast Louisiana. Hills in Louisiana? This was something I had to investigate. It turns out there is 'some' topography here and I didn't know what to do with land that wasn't flat. So I trudged up the hills on a nice little 40 minute or so run. Hope to hit the hiking trails next time I'm up here, but I now have a place to run some good hill workouts for this coming 1/2 marathon season! Check out sometime, I hear there are waterfalls during the rainy season as well! (That's me in the picture running up the Tunica hills)

Classical Rocky IV
If you have never seen Rocky IV with Sylvester Stallone, you are missing out on a great East -vs- West movie where the west prevails in a raging fit of fists. It pits Rocky, the fighter from Philly, against Drago, the Soviet juggernaut that, when he punches something, "he destroys it." What it really comes down to is that its a movie about the arms race, but in a different sense of the word "arms."

In the end hard work, perseverance, and the American spirit prevail and Rocky wins over the Soviet crowd and Drago is defeated. But, after being given a history lesson the other day by Morning Edition on NPR, I believe that ole Stallone borrowed his plot line from the classical music world. What, Stallone cheat? Nah...

It is the 50 year anniversary of the Van Cliburn destruction of the Soviets during the height of the Cold War. Van Cliburn...never heard of him have you? Turns out, during one of the tenses times of the Cold War, the Soviet Union hosted an international competition, inviting the best and brightest pianist to compete in its Tchaikovsky competition. Van Cliburn, a lanky 23 year old Texan, singly handily gave hope back to the downtrodden American people in the doom of this time (the Soviets had just launched Sputnik), and he did it no less playing classical Soviet pieces by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. When official inquiries were brought to Kruschev concering whether they would be permitted to award the prize to a non-Soviet pianist, Khrushchev himself replied, “Is Cliburn the best?” he asked. “Then give him first prize.”

Van Cliburn arrived back in New York to a ticker tape parade and was seen as a national hero for "stickin it to the commies." But his accomplishments did not stop there, with several of his recordings becoming some of the greatest sellers of all time, including the first ever classical music LP to go platinum, his Tchaikovsky concerto with the RCA Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirill Kondrashin. I am shocked that I had never heard of such an interesting story and in a way, I feel that its better than Rocky IV. It was real, something that affected history in a meaningful way through of true talent, and we all know that Stallone lacks a little in that department(Ever seen the movie Daylight?). But, I guess to make this story really complete, I wish Van Cliburn would have looked down another Pianist and stated in a firm Texan accent. "I will destroy you!" Now that my friend, would make Classical Music concerts AWESOME!
Cheers