Rudolf Serkin

Rudolf Serkin ( born March 28, 1903 in Eger, † 8 May 1991 in Guilford, Vermont) was an American pianist of Austrian origin.

Life

He was the fifth of eight children of Russian-Jewish singer Mardko Serkin. Despite the economic difficulties of the family 's artistic talent Serkin unfolded. A patron took on the ten- year-olds and also made contact with his most influential teacher, Arnold Schoenberg, ago. At the age of twelve years Serkin began his concert career in Vienna with a well-received performance of Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto in G minor. In 1920, he broke up in Berlin for the big solo career.

In 1933 he had to leave his Jewish origins because Nazi Germany. He went to Switzerland. 1932 Adolf Busch was at the Schnitterweg to Riehen near Basel in one - pulled double house - own design. The other half was referring Rudolf Serkin, who married in 1935 Busch's daughter Irene. 1939 emigrated to the Busch and Serkin to the U.S. and settled in Guilford to Brattleboro (Vermont ). Soon they founded together with Hermann Busch, the "bush - Serkin Trio ". From 1939 taught Serkin at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, which he headed until 1977 and 1968. Along with Adolf Busch 1951 he founded the Marlboro Music Festival, Marlboro, Vermont, takes place.

Serkin was a pianist, not a stir by eccentricities, but is distinguished by its clear and this tension-filled game. Pupil of Schoenberg on the one hand and convincing interpreter of the classical repertoire on the other hand - it was not a contradiction for Serkin. He understood modernity and timeliness is always independent of the life data of individual composers. Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Reger - they were among his charmed against all fashionable antics hands always current composers, their works present musical experience.

A later peak of his career was the unfinished cycle of piano concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart under Claudio Abbado, who was recorded in London at the beginning of the eighties. He became one of the most important and compelling interpreters of these works at all.

Rudolf Serkin 's father the pianist Peter Serkin.