We're told that it was with MacDowell's Second Piano Concerto in D minor that Van Cliburn made his first professional appearance with an orchestra at the age of 18, some six years before ''vaulting to fame'' as winner of Moscow's first Tchaikovsky Contest in 1958. This recording was made just two years after that when he was still only 26—albeit already two years older than the precociously gifted composer himself at the time of the concerto's composition. Yes, I agree with Roger Fiske (in his review of the catalogue's only other version from Donna Amato and the LPO on Olympia/Complete Record Co, 6/87) that the work lacks an immediately recognizable face of its own. But in its bold scoring and bravura writing for the soloist, it is scarcely less arresting than any of its big romantic rivals—or so it seems in this exhilarating performance. How very good to have it on CD at last and to be reminded of the young Van Cliburn's legendary wrists, fingers and blazing inner fire. For the familiar little ''To a Wild Rose'' he finds a touching simplicity.
The Schumann Concerto was recorded just six months before the MacDowell, with Reiner instead of Hendl as conductor. Here again it's Van Cliburn's exceptional youthful ardour and elan that immediately strike home. The first movement is brought to an unusually brilliant end. But neither here nor in the finale does virtuosity take precedence: always the music speaks. Only the Intermezzo seems to need tenderness of a slightly more intimately feminine kind. The orchestral contribution is splendid throughout, and full marks go to the RCA engineers for their digital remastering.'