Rudolf Serkin (March 28, 1903 – May 8, 1991) was born in Eger, modern-day Czech Republic, to Russian-born basso and cantor Mordko Serkin and his wife Augusta Schargel. He could read music before he could read words. At age 9, he went to Vienna to study piano and composition, and at age 12 he debuted with the Vienna Philharmonic. From age 15 to 17, he studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg.
In 1920, he lived in Berlin with the German violinist Adolf Busch, whose daughter, Irene, then 3, he would marry 15 years later. They would go on to have seven children, including pianist Peter Serkin and cellist Judith Serkin. Their grandchildren included composer David Ludwig and bassoonist Natalya Rose Vrbsky.
In 1921, he made his Berlin debut as the keyboard soloist in the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, later performing throughout Europe as a soloist and as part of the Busch Quartet. After Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, Serkin went with the non-Jewish Busch family to Basel, Switzerland. Busch and Serkin traveled together to the Coolidge Festival in Washington D.C. in 1933. Three years later, Serkin launched his solo career under conductor Arturo Toscanini and the New York Philharmonic. His first recital at Carnegie Hall came in 1937.
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Serkins and the Busches immigrated to the United States. At the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Serkin instructed generations of pianists and served from 1968 to 1975 as the Institute’s director. Busch and Serkin founded the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Marlboro, Vermont in 1951. Serkin made numerous classical music recordings on such labels as Columbia Masterworks, RCA Victor, Deutsche Grammophon and Terlac.
Serkin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963. In 1972 he celebrated his 100th appearance with the New York Philharmonic, playing on that occasion Johannes Brahm’s Piano Concerto No. 1. In 1981 received Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1988
He died of cancer at age 88 at his farm in Guilford, Vermont. His widow died seven years later.
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SDJW condensation of a Wikipedia article.
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