Serkin: The Complete Columbia Album Collection

Rudolf Serkin

This is the first-ever collection of Rudolf Serkin's complete recordings for Columbia Masterworks on 75 discs: Concertos, sonatas, chamber music and vocal performances, all recorded between 1941 and 1985. An all-embracing survey of Rudolf Serkin's recorded achievements, spanning over 44 years. Some collaborations include Adolf Busch, Pablo Casals, Peter Serkin, Jaime Laredo, Frtiz Reiner, George Szell, Eugene Ormandy, and Arturo Toscanini. Peter Serkin, Rudolf's son wrote some notes about the album: My father’s recordings for Columbia and my years growing up were somewhat contemporaneous.He had recorded for HMV on 78s up until then, and made some marvelous recordings, some solo, but largely sonatas, trios and quintets with my grandfather, Adolf Busch. Many of those are very exciting, wonderful performances. In the 1940s he began to record for Columbia. I can still remember him mentioning his friend Goddard Lieberson’s excitement at the possibility of making longer playing discs, on which one could hear a few movements of a piece without interruption, or often an entire composition. I love the very early recordings that my dad made for Columbia. I grew up with them. The Brahms D minor Concerto recorded with Fritz Reiner and the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Fifth Concerto by Beethoven with Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic, Beethoven Piano Sonatas opp. 13, 53, 81a, 109 and others. And, as I got older, more and more works were recorded. I would hear my father practicing these pieces at home and playing them in concerts, and then later records would appear of those same works. Calling him to lunch, he would sometimes be at the end of the Strauss Burleske and, when I would appear, he would play its final pages, with the final string pizzicato, and then leave it to me to play the final timpani note, low D, in the bass. That was great fun for me. Later, the album of that piece came out, coupled with the Schumann Concerto, with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and with a cover of oranges in a bowl. Many of these recordings from the 1950s and 1960s were so loved by many people, and still are cherished by many, even now. Many people have mentioned them to me. The Beethoven concertos, also with Ormandy, and the two Brahms, and Mendelssohn and others, are beautiful performances. So too are the Mozart concertos recorded with Alexander “Sasha” Schneider leading the orchestra in the dining hall of Marlboro – Marlboro in its early days, when music-making there was so very fresh.​​​​​​​I turned pages for both the Prokofiev Concerto No. 4, for the left hand, recorded with Ormandy and Philadelphia, and for the Bartók Concerto No. 1, which was recorded with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. I would also sometimes play their orchestra parts on a second piano to help my father prepare. In these earlier recordings for Columbia one hears my dad’s great qualities. I remember him often telling me that, after studying a piece as thoroughly as one can, and after practicing and rehearsing it diligently, one then goes out to play it, forgetting everything. In his passionate devotion to music he researched everything he could about a composition and its composer. There was a selflessness to his approach that resulted in something not at all anonymous, but brimming with energy and character. One hears in these recordings a kind of playing that is a model for directness, propulsiveness, and dynamic intensity, a radical and fearless approach, with a mindfulness of form, generally presenting a composition simply as it is, full of individuality and life.Thankful that these recordings have been collected and reissued now, we can all appreciate and enjoy them so much.DISC 1:Brahms: Concerto No. 1 in D minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 15 (1946) Reiner DISC 2:Beethoven: Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor for Piano, Op. 27, No. 2 "Moonlight" (1941)Beethoven: Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 "Pathétique" (1945) DISC 3:Beethoven: Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 73 "Emperor" (1941) Walter DISC 4:Beethoven: Sonata No. 9