Pianist Peter Serkin has died, age 72, of pancreatic cancer. He came from two famous musical families, with his father Rudolph preceding him as a great pianist, and, on his mother's side, the violinist Adolph Busch, founder of the Busch Quartet, was his grandfather.
His career was not without some struggles as he tried to find his particular place in the musical world. I never saw him live, but I treasure those of his recordings that I know: Tashi's famous 1970s recording of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, a seminal 20th c. chamber work, and his spectacular late Beethoven piano sonata set, recorded on fortepiano and capturing the wildness of those works best of any I know. You have definitely not lived until you've heard his Hammerklavier, with the first movement taken at the printed tempo.
Serkin had ongoing relationships with contemporary composers and performed a good deal of music written for him.
RIP, Peter Serkin.
4 comments:
I did hear Peter Serkin live, several times. Most recently, he played the Brahms First concerto with Symphony Silicon Valley under George Cleve (also gone from us) seven years ago, and Mozart's K.459 with SFS and Blomstedt two years after that. I've also heard him in chamber music, but that was a lot longer ago. He was a mainstay of his profession, and I'm sorry we've lost him.
I worked with him a few times, with San Jose Symphony and later Symphony Silicon Valley. I always enjoyed his playing tremendously. It's difficult to believe he's gone.
I KNOW. Somehow he seemed eternally 30.
YES! "Eternally 30" is exactly right. Thus the shock ... of his death and also at his age. Heh. But then I'm shocked at MY age as well. Sigh.
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