Review: Peter Serkin's Complete RCA Recordings

Forever grateful to have caught at least one Serkin in concert: that was Peter Serkin in the Bartok 3rd, in Shanghai. His recording of Visions de l'Amen was my first ever exposure to Messiaen. Simply blew my mind. This Serkin should never be forgotten. Thanks for the review, Dave!

The first time I heard the Goldberg Variations was at Marlboro College in ‘81 or thereabouts. It was Peter Serkin playing for about 100 of us in our little theater. His parents lived just off campus, so he’d occasionally come to visit. I was transfixed. Could there be a better way to be introduced to this masterpiece? On a separate occasion, I was having lunch in the dining hall (there was nowhere else to eat) when Serkin appeared and sat down across the table from me. I don’t think that he knew any of us, but he just wanted to shoot the breeze. I don’t remember what we talked about, but it wasn’t music. I remember his obvious delight with the conversation, complete lack of pretense, and sense of total ease. Perhaps that’s what we’re hearing in these recordings.

I don't know what the procedure is for making suggestions like this, so I apologize in advance if this isn't it. But here goes. I have just started listening to the Hummel Edition from Brilliant Classics, and that got me thinking. In every period, it seems there are composers who receive an Honourable Mention. They're not one of the greats, but they were popular in their day, and their music is considered worth revisiting and recording now and then, even though they're mostly forgotten. They're the CD filler-uppers of classical music: add a cello concerto by Pleyel, to fill out a disc of Haydn's cello concertos, or a wind sextet by the same composer, to fill out a disc by Mozart. I would be interested in your thoughts about which composers deserve an 'honourable mention,' and why they're good enough not to be forgotten--but not really good enough to be remembered.

I enjoyed your traversal of the P Serkin RCA box. I still have the old LP's of his Chopin from the late 1970s, when I heard him play an all Chopin recital here in Iowa City at Hancher Auditorium. It was not well received by the piano faculty at the Univ of Iowa, and years later when PS returned to Iowa City (I can't recall if it was the Tashi concert or another appearance) he told me how "pissed off" he had been by the cold reception of his Chopin. I later saw PS on TV performing a very fine Brahms B-flat concerto, so he had a broader repertoire than is represented in the RCA box. His father Rudolf played a very fine rendition of the Chopin Preludes and also the Etudes op 25 - who knew? More recently there is a video of P Serkin with H Blomstedt and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw laboring through the Reger piano concerto - omg what a turgid piece of offal, next to which Parsifal seems of a Daphnis & Chloe lightness. Blomstedt and the Dresden Staatskapelle did the greatest performance I ever heard of the Brahms First here in Iowa City - that was in the mid 1980s and I have friends here who still reminisce fondly about it. I will cease my stream of semiconsciousness now. Thanks for your very entertaining and informative videos.

WONDERFUL!!! Thank you so much!!! Greetings to all!!

Thank you for covering this release. I was so pleased that it was released and experienced no disappointment with it. The younger Serkin somehow made his own way and offers pianistic pleasures - however different - as significant as those of his father. His musical curiosity led him to many interesting areas. His playing, to me, is friendly pianism. And I relish the off-the-beaten paths which he was moved to explore. My booklet does not have the printing problem which caused some impressive dexterity on your part. And the Distler essay is quite appropriate. A winning box, all the way around.

Back in my music journalism days a long time ago, I reviewed Serkin's records and concerts, and was lucky enough to interview him a few times; always a pleasure. Pretty much everything he did was played with deep intelligence, probing imagination, and tonal beauty. In the '80s he did a series of recordings for Pro Arte--a full-priced label created by the Heilicher organization. Bach, Beethoven, the Brahms concertos with Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Sym. A Chopin disk, if memory serves. Maybe some other things, too. His Pro Arte recordings were engineered by a friend of mine, Russ Borud, who recently passed away. I was privileged to hear some of these records in Russ's studio hot off the griddle, so to speak, before anyone else did. Hope someone reissues these, as well.

Thanks for this Dave! I heard Peter Serkin play Mozart B-flat Concerto in New York sometime in the late 60s or early 70s. He came out onstage with bare feet & an Indian-style shirt. I felt that he became Mozart during that elegant, joyful performance. He was also the wonderful Simone Dinnerstein's teacher.

R Serkin’s tone in the hall was gun metal gray, indeed, but it was immense, penetrating, and polished.

I once heard Mr. Serkin in October 2007 in Bach’s BWV 1052 concerto (conducted by Herbert Blomstedt before a magnificent Bruckner 2) and although he seemed, at least visually, to be going through a really tough time, the musical thoughts were crystal clear if you closed your eyes.

Peter's Trout Quintet on Vanguard was the first recording of it I owned and is still a favorite of mine.

I had no idea this set was available. Thanks for the review. Peter Serkin's set of the Mozart concertos 14-19 was my introduction to all except no. 19. Few recordings of those works can match Serkin's. Thanks, Dave for putting in a plea for a Sony/Casals box. We really really need all of his festival recoridngs from Prades, Perpignan, Puerto Rico and Marlboro. Some of that trove was reissued on Sony and Pearl decades ago, but a comprehensive reissue is long overdue.

I’ve always admired Serkin. My absolute favorite is a collaboration with Harold Wright in the Brahms Clarinet Sonatas. It’s not only beautifully played and recorded (better IMO, than Wright earlier recording), but also the first I’ve ever heard where the piano and clarinet are treated and recorded as equals….that is, the clarinet is enveloped within the piano sound. Alas, I can’t remember the label of the top of my head. Update: It’s on Boston Records and it’s up on YouTube.

I am quite happy to have this box in my possession. I confess having come to it for the freshness of repertoire, but returning to it for the freshness of performances! Good mix of the (not extremely) usual and the (modern) less often heard works, with the latter winning out, plus - as Dave pointed out - Peter Serkin's originality in interpreting the popular repertoire really makes a difference. Recommended!

I first saw Peter Serkin when he was 17 or 18 playing the Brahms Piano Quintet with the Budapest String Quartet around 1965 or so in Jordan Hall in Boston. I was in college and had bought the Columbia recording of the Brahms Quintet with his father playing with the Budapest SQ which had been released in 1963 or 64. Rudolf would play annually in Boston along with Rubinstein and many other great classical musicians. However, this was the first time to hear both his son and the famed Budapest SQ, who looked absolutely ancient. First violin Joe Roisman was said to be losing some of his intonation by the time of the concert, and the Budapest SQ disbanded by the time I graduated from college in 1967. Many years later we heard Serkin playing with the Curtis Orchestra when they were touring in London, a year or two before his death in 2020.

I am ashamed to say I knew nothing about him. I had barely heard his name mentioned. Thank you for enlightening me. I shall seek out some of his recordings and educate myself. On the other hand I do have the wonderful Stern/Bernstein Berg Violin concerto. I also have his father's recording on piano roll of the Goldberg. I think it may have been the first recording ever made of the Goldberg.

Amazing that "Major Record Label" RCA let Serkin roam so far and wide - some of these discs must've sold hardly at all. The Mozart Salzburg concerto set was/is a marvel - and what a wonderful backing by Schneider and the great ECO. (I recall one of the earlier Penguin Guides was positively splenetic re: these Mozart recordings.) And all the Marlboro/Casals regulars popping up on these discs!

I bought Peter Serkin's accounts of Mozart Piano Concerti 14-19 with Alexander Schneider and the ECO, and I fell in love with them. Later I read the Gramophone review of these recordings. The Gramophone reviewer gave it mediocre marks. Boy, was the Gramophone guy wrong!

Thanks so much for reviewing this. I knew the Mozart and those slow tempos that probably would have surprised Mozart--but coupled with that "sustainability." He certainly never scants the rests and marked fermatas. Less slow in the 14-19 concertos, a set I've loved since they came out on vinyl. I am ordering this tout suite. Even if they didnt correct the backward upside down booklet. P.S. The "Work With Narrator" From Hell: Strauss's Enoch Arden.

My favorite Serkin recording isn't in the big box because it wasn't from RCA, but it's his 1986 Pro Arte Hammerklavier sonata (the earlier one on a concert Steinway). It's tremendously exhilarating, taken very briskly but with everything coming across clearly and with great rhythmic precision & punch. Quite the opposite of those more granitic versions--which to be honest I generally prefer--but nevertheless a fresh and riveting account that I surprise myself by regularly coming back to.