Rudolf Serkin

Rudolf Serkin was born in Cheb, Bohemia, in March 1903, the son of a Russian-Jewish singer. He studied piano with Richard Robert in Vienna from 1909 and composition with Joseph Marx and Arnold Schoenberg, and made his concert début in 1915 at twelve. His meeting with the violinist Adolf Busch in 1920 began the chamber-music partnership that defined the first half of his career: he served as Busch’s regular sonata partner and joined the Busch Chamber Orchestra in 1932.

He emigrated to the United States in 1939, after Busch refused to perform in Germany following the Nazi takeover, and settled in Vermont. From that point his career as a solo recitalist and concerto pianist developed alongside the continuing Busch partnership. He was appointed to the faculty of the Curtis Institute in 1939 and served as its director from 1968 to 1976. He founded the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont with Busch in 1951 — the festival became one of the central post-war American chamber music institutions and the principal training ground for young American chamber musicians. His central solo repertoire was the German Classical and Romantic literature: the complete Beethoven piano sonatas (recorded twice), the Schubert sonatas, the Schumann *Carnaval* and *Fantasy*, and substantial Brahms and Mendelssohn. His Brahms recordings with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra remained reference performances.

Serkin was made a Companion of the Order of Arts and Letters of France in 1986. He died in Guilford, Vermont, in May 1991. Music Preserved’s archive includes a range of his solo and chamber work.