Rudolf Serkin
American classical pianist and Grammy winner known for technically pristine playing and commitment to contemporary music.
Rudolf Serkin (28 March 1903 – 8 May 1991) was a Bohemian-born Austrian-American pianist, widely regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of Beethoven in the 20th century. Born in Cheb, Bohemia (then part of Austria-Hungary, now in the Czech Republic) to a Russian Jewish family, Serkin was taught to read music by his father, a former Russian basso, before he could read words. Recognized as a child prodigy, he moved to Vienna at age nine to study piano with Richard Robert and composition with Joseph Marx, making his public debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at twelve. From 1918 to 1920, he studied composition under Arnold Schoenberg and participated in Schoenberg’s Society for the Private Performance of Music. He began his concert career in 1920, living in Berlin with violinist Adolf Busch and his family, including Busch’s three-year-old daughter Irene, whom Serkin married fifteen years later. At seventeen, his Berlin debut featured him as keyboard soloist in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with Busch’s ensemble; after the concert, Busch jokingly suggested he play the Goldberg Variations as an encore, which Serkin did, leaving only four audience members: Busch, Artur Schnabel, Alfred Einstein, and Serkin himself. During the 1920s and early 1930s, he performed across Europe as a soloist and with Busch and the Busch Quartet. With Hitler’s rise in 1933, Serkin and the Busches left Berlin for Basel, Switzerland. That year, he made his first U.S. appearance at the Coolidge Festival in Washington, D.C., with Busch. In 1936, he launched his solo U.S. career with the New York Philharmonic under Arturo Toscanini, performing Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto to critical praise; Olin Downes of the New York Times lauded his combination of penetrating analysis, artistic enthusiasm, and clean, poetic technique. His 1937 Carnegie Hall recital earned similar acclaim. After World War II broke out in 1939, Serkin and the Busches emigrated to the United States, where Serkin taught at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, serving as its director from 1968 to 1976. He lived in New York, Philadelphia, and on a dairy farm in Guilford, Vermont. In 1951, he and Busch founded the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Vermont to promote chamber music. He recorded extensively from the 1940s into the 1980s, including Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with Toscanini for RCA
- field
- Classical piano
- nationality
- American
Verified Timeline
Lore & Background
In 1968, shortly after marrying and becoming a father, Serkin decided to stop playing music altogether. In the winter of 1971, he, his wife, and baby daughter Karina moved to a small rural town in Mexico. About eight months later, on a Sunday morning, Serkin heard the music of Johann Sebastian Bach being broadcast over the radio from a neighbor's house. As he listened, he said, "It became clear to me that I should play." He returned to the U.S. and began his musical career anew. He recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations five times, the first made when he was 17, the fourth when he was 47, the fifth when he was 70. A recording of Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur L'Enfant-Jésus at age 25 became iconic, with noted "deep understanding of the composer's sound-world and its emotional extremes, coupled with considerable instrumental prowess".
Reader's Guide
Serkin's concert career began in 1958, when he first performed at the Marlboro Music Festival. Following that performance, he was invited to play with major orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell and the Philadelphia Orchestra with Eugene Ormandy. In 1966, at age 19, Serkin was awarded the Grammy Award for Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist. Three of his recordings garnered Grammy nominations (one features six Mozart concertos; the two others feature the music of Olivier Messiaen). Serkin was the first pianist to receive the Premio Internazionale Musicale Chigiana award in 1983 and he received an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music in 2001. He performed around the world with leading orchestras and conductors including Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, James Levine, and Christoph Eschenbach. Among prominent virtuosi, Peter Serkin was one of the first to experiment with period fortepianos, and the first to record late Beethoven sonatas on pianos of both the modern as well as Beethoven's era.
Did You Know?
- Peter Serkin won the Grammy Award for Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist in 1966 at age 19.
- He stopped playing music entirely in 1968 and moved to a small rural town in Mexico in 1971 before hearing Bach on the radio and deciding to return to music.
- He recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations five times, with the first at age 17 and the last at age 70.
- He was the first pianist to receive the Premio Internazionale Musicale Chigiana award in 1983.
- He was one of the first prominent virtuosi to experiment with period fortepianos and the first to record late Beethoven sonatas on both modern and Beethoven-era pianos.
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