領頭的本世紀最傑出的鋼琴家Richter， Gilels。

Held in Moscow in late March, the contest was the first international piano competition ever to be held in the Soviet Union and included 50 contestants representing 19 countries. Each entrant was scheduled to give three performances before a jury comprised of world-renowned musicians who would cast ballots to select the winner, including pianists Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels, Lev Oborin, modern composer Dmitiri Kabalevsky, Sir Arthur Bliss, and composer Dmitri Shostakovich. But with the world watching as the competition unfolded, Moscow was center stage for the scandal that some said was taking place. 

After the competition, rumors ensured that the panel of judges had already selected Russian pianist Lev Vlasenko as the winner, attempting to placate Russian political leaders with a show of national pride. Fearing Khrushchev's reaction, several members of the competition's jury "boycotted" Cliburn, giving him scores of 15, 16, and 19 (on a 0-25 scale) despite a flawless performance. However, Richter and others discovered the bias in scoring and in order to balance the final tallies, awarded Van Cliburn with scores of 25 while giving his competitors zero points. When questioned about his idiosyncratic scoring, Richter replied: "People either make music or they don't." 

By the third round of the competition, word had spread of Cliburn's performance and the controversy surrounding the judges' voting. Tickets were sold out for his final performance, where Cliburn was accompanied by an orchestra directed by Kiril Kondrashin to perform two pieces: Tchaikovsky's Concerto No. 1 in B flat and Rachmaninoff's No. 3 in D minor. After delivering a masterful performance, Cliburn was personally led back on stage by Gilels, who publicly embraced him. This unprecedented gesture represented a turning point in Cliburn's career: only a year or two before had Cliburn admired Gilels's piano mastery from afar as a member of the audience at Carnegie Hall. Astoundingly, Cliburn received a standing ovation that lasted for an entire eight minutes despite the fact that the other finalists had not yet performed. Cliburn later told reporters that during his ovation, he could see Krushchev's daughter as well as Queen Elizabeth of Belgium joining the audience in their applause. Cliburn had won the competition, but more importantly, he had won the admiration of the audience.