Peter Serkin dead at 72

[Herman]

The sad news is Peter Serkin, the great champion of twentieth century composers, has died.

Reading the obits one gets the feeling his life has not been easy. He did not like performing but if he didn't who was going to play this stuff? He was just about the exact opposite of Glenn Gould.

His dad (one Rudolph Serkin) tried to dissuade him from playing the piano, dad didn't like the way he tensed up behind the keyboard.

Also I cannot help but notice he divorced at abt age 70; that can't have been fun.

I have quite a bunch of his cd's, all with virtually unique material. Unfortunately I never saw him in concert.

[Gurn Blanston]

Sad. RIP.  One of the few times I actually saw him, (rather than just heard) he looked delighted to be playing one of Schubert's Marches for Piano 4 Hands with his dad. It was a great little bit of video.

[Herman]

Oh, I wasn't saying he had a bad relationship with Rudolph; I'm sure they had a great relationship.

But it's kind of tough to start out as the son of one of the greater pianists.

[Jo498]

He is one of the few world class pianists I ever saw in concert. But I was overtaxed with the repertoire at the time. He played a very personal, even strange Waldstein Sonata and one of the big Reger variations (probably the Bach Var.) and a bunch of Takemitsu pieces because the latter had died a few weeks earlier (this was around spring 1996 in Seattle at the University of Washington).

[Iota]

I saw him once in the mid eighties in Wigmore Hall, London and he was about the most nervous performer I've ever seen, his hands shaking almost uncontrollably for about the first half hour. I can't imagine how he managed to play through it. However the recital turned out to be one of the, if not 'the', most powerful and stirring I've ever been to, tension somehow became intensity and the doors to somewhere quite amazing opened. It changed my thoughts about where music could go at the time.

I never found anything like the connection with his recordings sadly, and have rather lost touch with him, but was very sad indeed when I heard this on another board.

RIP

[Mirror Image]

A truly fantastic pianist, RIP Mr. Serkin.

[Karl Henning]

The sad news is Peter Serkin, the great champion of twentieth century composers, has died.

Reading the obits one gets the feeling his life has not been easy. He did not like performing but if he didn't who was going to play this stuff? He was just about the exact opposite of Glenn Gould.

His dad (one Rudolph Serkin) tried to dissuade him from playing the piano, dad didn't like the way he tensed up behind the keyboard.

Also I cannot help but notice he divorced at abt age 70; that can't have been fun.

I have quite a bunch of his cd's, all with virtually unique material. Unfortunately I never saw him in concert.

Very sad! Two wonderful performances: The première of Wuorinen's Fourth Concerto at Symphony Hall here in Boston, and his performance at the Library of Congress, a program which included both Charles' Second Piano Quintet, and the Schoenberg Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte. (If memory serves, with the Brentano Quartet.) Truly, a rare and a brave artist.

[Daverz]

So many formative recordings for me, from Messiaen to the Mozart concertos with Schneider.  He did seem to disappear later, but that does not seem that unusual for pianists.

The last recording I have is the Brahms with Pamela Franck from the '90s.

[San Antone]

Sad news. 

His recordings with Loraine Hunt Lieberson stick out in my mind as two phenomenally talented artists making wonderful music.  And his recording of the Schoenberg piano music is excellent, IMO.

[Herman]

Truly, a rare and a brave artist.

So very different from today's star pianists who record an album with one or two warhorses and then go and 'tour the album'.

Serkin was a pianist who truly pushed the envelope and (my guess is) he paid a price. There's this story of him playing a programme of a dozen solo pieces dedicated to him, and he had to to take a long performing break in order to study that programme.

[Mandryka]

I've been listening to this performance of D894 -- hope it eventually gets transfered and cleaned up, it's interesting

https://www.youtube.com/v/dPAVyOdnW6I