Mourning a pianist, and an era   The tributes have poured forth,
including from NPR, since the not unexpected news yesterday of
the death of pianist Van Cliburn.  We'll do our own part on WFCR
with broadcasts of several of his finest performances over the
next few days.  Celebrated for his victory in the 1958
Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Cliburn enjoyed a relatively
brief period in the spotlight before phasing out his concert
career just 20 years after he burst onto the scene.  That means
that the majority of current classical concertgoers never heard
Cliburn at his peak, if at all, and know him only from
recordings and from the quadrennial piano competition that bears
his name.  Why then, do I, a member of the post-Cliburn
generation, feel his loss so strongly?  Because in addition to
losing a great artist, a living link to a bygone era of American
classical music has also been lost — an era when a classical
musician could be a household name and million-selling recording
artist, could get his picture