Includes a monophonic
CD [75.18] of music by Bach, Mendelssohn,
and Chopin from solo concerts from 1946
through 1950 originally recorded on
acetate disks at the US Library of Congress
and restored by Ward Marston.
My interest in reading
this book was not based on my being
a great fan of Serkin’s, but rather
on knowing very little about him or
his recordings, knowing literally nothing
about the man apart from his son Peter’s
reputation for flamboyance and originality
in music as in life. Thus the book was
all the more fascinating in that virtually
everything in it was new to me and it
turns out to be an interesting story
about a very interesting man, interesting
even if he isn’t your favourite pianist.
Rudolf Serkin was born
March 28, 1903, in Eger, Bohemia, which
is now Cheb in the Czech Republic. Rudolf’s
father Mordko was born to a strict orthodox
Jewish family in Belarus, but ran away
from home and became an Atheist. While
serving occasionally as cantor he earned
his living singing minor roles in operettas.
Rudolf’s mother, Auguste, née
Shargel, also Jewish, was from Galicia
near the present day Polish-Romanian
border. Her family would consent to
the marriage only if Mordko gave up
his stage career, which he readily agreed
to do, and they helped him to set up
in business as a shoemaker. Auguste
was not happy in the marriage but she
suppressed her disappointment; she and
her children were not close emotionally.
His father was keen
that all his children become musicians,
and Rudi began piano lessons with Camilla
Taussig at the age of 4, performing
in public for the first time at age
6. Composition lessons began at age
8. His talent astonished the violinist
Huberman and a few weeks later an audition
before the Viennese virtuoso Alfred
Grünfeld resulted in a move to
Vienna and lessons with Richard Robert,
who was also the teacher of George Szell.
Robert insisted on a solid grounding
in the great masters and was considered
by some to be a reactionary, but was
much loved by his students. Rudolf’s
family suffered severe financial losses,
and there were hardships to be endured
in wartime Vienna during WWI. Rudi had
time for nothing but study and work.
In 1918, Serkin met
Schoenberg whom he later credited with
being the greatest single influence
on his musical personality, and for
two years played nothing but contemporary
music. In 1920 Serkin found fault with
some of Schoenberg’s music, and the
friendship was abruptly terminated.
On tour in Vienna, violinist Adolf Busch
needed a new accompanist, Serkin was
auditioned and not merely hired but
literally adopted by Busch. He went
on to live with him in Berlin and later
married his daughter Irene. As with
Prokofiev, the first photograph ever
taken of Serkin smiling was his wedding
picture.
Serkin and Busch at
once developed an intense rapport and
played together all over Europe to rave
notices. Although Busch was not Jewish—indeed
he and his musical brothers were so
central to early 20th century musical
life in Germany that they can only be
compared to the Bachs of the 18th Century—his
friendship with Serkin put him on the
Nazi’s list. They moved first to Switzerland,
then in 1939 they moved to the US together
to escape the Nazis. Busch was indeed
openly and virulently hostile to the
Nazis. At one point when an olive branch
was extended to him, even to the extent
of proposing to officially declare Serkin
to be an "honorary Aryan,"
Busch’s reply was "Hang Hitler,
then hang Göring." Only the
onset of serious illness which ended
Busch’s career in 1940 ended their performing
together. Busch continued to teach until
his death in 1952.
Busch was close friends
with Donald Francis Tovey, who before
WWI had played the Goldberg Variations
in Germany to great critical acclaim.
But after the WWI Tovey forsook the
life of a touring virtuoso, and now
it was Rudolf Serkin who toured Europe
playing the Goldberg Variations, on
one occasion as an encore—complete!
At one point Serkin gave up performing
certain classical concerti because he
became dissatisfied with the available
cadenzas, and Tovey advised him to write
his own.
The Serkin family had
been among the 550 (3%) citizens of
Jewish ancestry in the predominately
Catholic town of Eger which in the years
to come would become virulently anti-Semitic.
Rudolf never either denied his Jewish
roots nor embraced them, and considered
himself a "non-Jewish Jew."
Once safe and successful in America
he responded very, very generously to
appeals from friends and relatives in
Europe for money and help with visas.
Because of Serkin’s
shyness and sense of privacy and his
absolute refusal to talk about himself
the authors have had to rely entirely
on the testimony of others. They include
a series of lengthy verbatim personal
statements ("Voices") of recollections
by friends of Serkin. He was not a conversationalist,
and friendship with Serkin meant making
music with him; his friends were all
the greatest virtuosos of his time,
from Alexander Schneider and Mieczyslaw
Horszowski to Pablo Casals.
In the USA he joined
the staff of the Curtis Institute in
Philadelphia and taught there from 1939
to 1976 along with Isabelle Vengerova
(Bernstein’s teacher) and, after 1942,
with Mieczyslaw Horszowski, who was
broadly interested in classical as well
as modern music and who frequently performed
the Tovey "Tragique" Trio.
Serkin was delighted
to discover that the hills of South-western
Vermont reminded him of Austria and
Switzerland, and he purchased 125 acres
near Guilford. He delighted in raising
his family there, sending them to the
local schools. The press found this
extremely interesting and dubbed him
"Farmer Serkin." But due to
teaching, recording, and concertising,
it was not until 1976 that the farm
became the family’s year around permanent
home.
He quickly made friends
with the founders and staff at the nearby
Marlboro College, and from 1946 was
instrumental in establishing the school
of music there. The Marlboro Festivals
were another result, beginning in 1951,
where Serkin invited his friends to
make music under very informal surroundings.
In 1972 he said, "...remember that
Marlboro is the real world, the rest
is only a nightmare..."
Serkin became a member
of the "Eastern" European
musical focus, distinct from the "Western"
focus in Hollywood which included Bruno
Walter, Arnold Schoenberg, and Igor
Stravinsky (and almost included Prokofiev).
It is curious why these two settlements
remained so separate for so long. Since
Serkin had broken with Schoenberg many
years before, it might be understandable
why he never travelled West, but as
a fellow member of the Eastern settlement,
it is more difficult to understand why
he did not get along with Hindemith
whose music one would have thought would
suit Serkin’s temperament well. But,
apparently with the exception of Reger,
Serkin lost his interest in modern music
and is identified strongly with the
classics, particularly Beethoven and
Mozart. Almost in confirmation of this
is his son Peter’s deep interest in
modern music of all kinds; however,
the book includes no details of family
disputes in this or any other matter.
The cd, with 25 tracks
chosen from perhaps hundreds of concerts,
represents a superb sampling of the
finest moments of Serkin’s art and is
worth the full price of a CD, which
in a sense reduces the net price of
the book by about one half. The sound
is OK but not spectacular and some coughs
and crackle remain. The playing is always
clean, with intense commitment, emotion,
even passion, yet every note is precisely
in place. Although my previous favourite
performance of the complete Chopin Etudes
is by Guiomar Novaes, this performance
of Opus 25 is certainly as good and
I will listen to it often. The Mendelssohn
is a little more vigorous and less graceful
than my reference performances with
Murray Perahia. The Bach is better than
any other modern piano performance I’ve
ever heard, similar in style to Andras
Schiff, but the sound is marred by intermittent
pitch instability in the later movements.
Paul Shoemaker
