Van Cliburn, the gifted pianist who electrified America by winning the first International Tchaikovsky Competition, in 1958, passed away this morning, at age seventy-eight. Cliburn was remarkable for many reasons—for his musical gift, certainly, but also for his odd career. He achieved worldwide fame at twenty-three, when he won the Competition, which was held in Moscow in the midst of the Cold War, and he embarked on a number of successful concert tours. But he gradually gave up performing and announced his retirement in 1978, when he was only forty-four years old.

The New Yorker’s archives contain two snapshots of Cliburn around the time of his Moscow success.

Here’s a look at Van Cliburn in the archive: http://nyr.kr/WipBW0

Photograph by J. Siegelman/Time Life Pictures/Getty.

Cartoon by Jack Ziegler. For more: http://nyr.kr/Y7pk4K

Richard Brody on his favorite pianist, Patrick Cohen, who seems to have vanished: http://nyr.kr/W1EKYb

(Source: newyorker.com)

Tonight, there’s a concert I have been looking forward to attending for almost a year, ever since it was announced: a Radu Lupu recital at Carnegie Hall. If you live in New York, you’re spoiled for opportunities to hear great pianists, but if there’s one performer you have to go and hear when you get the chance, it’s Lupu. (There are still tickets available, by the way.)

Click-through for more from Leo Carey on Radu Lupu’s genius: http://nyr.kr/W2CXD3

Cartoon by Mick Stevens. For more: http://nyr.kr/UP4d8q

Jeremy Denk remembers pianist Charles Rosen, author of “The Classical Style,” who recently passed away: http://nyr.kr/XEI6yK

Photograph from 1969 by Erich Auerbach/Hulton Archive/Getty.

The jazz pianist Dave Brubeck died on Wednesday in Norwalk, Connecticut, one day short of his ninety-second birthday…

Looking back at Dave Brubeck, who was profiled in the magazine in 1961: http://nyr.kr/11MxnHr

Photograph by Guy Le Querrec/Magnum.

Opening today at Bonni Benrubi Gallery, “One Steinway Place” is an exploration of the famed piano factory in Astoria, Queens, by the photographer Christopher Payne. Under the glow of fluorescent lights, raw lumber is bent, pressed, conditioned, and polished into instruments of exacting quality. With more than twelve thousand individual parts, including Canadian maple, Bavarian spruce, and Swedish steel, each piano takes nearly a year to assemble before being subjected to a final hand inspection by Wally Boot, a fifty-year veteran of the factory. Payne was allowed unfettered access to the factory, allowing him to document every step of the process. Click-through for a selection of his work, which is on view through September 19th: http://nyr.kr/LZ8NyA

Cartoon of the night. For more cartoons from this week’s issue: http://nyr.kr/IMlNAW

(Source: newyorker.com)

Cover Story: George Booth Remembers Mawmaw

On our Culture Desk blog, George Booth discusses the story behind this week’s cover, with a slide show of his past covers: http://nyr.kr/AgiHuq