Search - Franz Joseph Haydn, Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Frederic Chopin :: Van Cliburn International Piano Competition Retrospective Series, Vol. 1

Steven De Groote, a pianist from South Africa, won the Gold Medal at the 1977 Van Cliburn Competition. He died in 1989, at 36, from the lingering effects of a 1985 plane crash. Not even the Cliburn award propelled him to a major career, but in these prizewinning performances we can hear that De Groote was a very special artist. His Haydn has wit and charm, his Schubert almost overwhelming emotional force. He makes the shifting moods of the Chopin completely convincing. There was some controversy at the Cliburn Competition when De Groote beat a more exciting pianist, Alexander Toradze, for the gold, but De Groote's Prokofiev Sonata shows he could whip up excitement with the best of them. A beautiful memorial to a great artist. --Leslie Gerber