Thank you for posting this rarety in the Serklin repertoire. I heard a memborable performance of these Etudes by Serkin at UCLA in the late 50s, following an amazing Beethoven "Hammerklavier". I still remember this extraordinary night nearly 60 years ago!
You refused to believe the decades of experts?!! He like Rubinstein was famous in the time of Hofmann &Lhevinne. Rubinstein 1930s recs are amateurish by today's standards ofcourse and Serkins Chopin can't please any Chopin lover but imagine a time more rural wout t.v. or internet. Yet he was better thsn most living then or he wouldn't have the biggest reputation. I'm surprised at how wrongheaded his Butterfly etude is.!!
RU-vid must be one of the best things that happened to classical music in recent times, unprecedented age of sharing/discovering/comparing/learning! Splendid and impressive rendition, thanks for sharing.
It's a calamity in the world piano with the Lisistas and others things who play campanella on Y Tube we don't known if there are or not computers that play Liste , you are not a lover-Music it's sûre !
So very true. Many of these radiobroadcasts,tapes,etc.were held by elitists who would not let anyone hear or copy them! The Lhevinne Tchaikovsky has existed all this time only recently becoming publicly accessible. Serkin is not a Chopinist but his take and ideas are valuable!
But many esp. T oday,play a finer Chopin. Horowitz remarked on how diff Serkins Schumann concerto was! Here we have his ideas . 19th century tastes and Chopin are ignored. This is a musician lyrics fine pianistic account. Serkin was a revolutionary this is never talked about. The Brodsky 's believed in him!
Each pianist - certainly every great pianist - deserves one's respect and open-mindedness. Each of us listens differently, thinks differently and feels differently. Then there is taste - a rather slippery, but definite factor that plays into the overall impression.... Rudolf Serkin is certainly an anachronism! Vladimir Horowitz admired few pianists: Backhaus and Gieseking: pianists that contemporary pianists have probably rarely heard. But among all the great pianists ONLY Rudolf Serkin gained Horowitz's top pick! They had met in the late 1920s and in one of Serkin's early 1930 recitals Horowitz commented later than he would never equal Serkin's musicianship and that his(Serkin's) piano playing proper was on a par with his (Horowitz). Serkin once commented: "There is no such thing as progress in piano playing; there is only a change of style." Rubinstein used to say that all the new pianists(1960s and 70s) were like soda jerks (an American term used to refer to a person (typically a young person) who would operate the soda fountain in a drugstore.). The truth is that a serious aficionado of the piano can absorb and take seriously any pianist if they resonate with that pianist. Serkin was indeed a revolutionary or a law-unto-himself, or as Harold C. Schonberg said: "Mr. Serkin is a romantic with a brain." This is the age of the iPhone, the bombardment of social and fake information galore; cleverness has usurped wisdom and intelligence. I love many of the present young pianists, but the "Golden Years" are over and what we have is the early 21st century. I go to recitals of young pianists on a regular basis and like and love many of them. It took me a while, but IF I listen with complete attention, try to enter into the pianist's world, and strip myself of preconceived ideas, THEN I find myself - usually - entering into a magical world. Anthony Tommasini was the chief music critic for the New York Times for twenty years. He has a Ph.D. in musical performance from Yale University. In October of 2006 he wrote an article on Horowitz and Serkin. "This year marks the centenary of both Vladimir Horowitz and Rudolf Serkin, arguably the two finest concert pianists of the last century." Wow...the piano mavens of today would go ballastic with Tommasini"s assessment. David Dubal, pianist on the faculty of Julliard and author of many piano books, admonishes piano aficionados to STUDY the great pianists. He names perhaps thirty or so from the 20th century WORTHY of our attention and time. This is a long-winded commentary on no particular issue, other than, great talent is given to the world. We should all be open and receptive to different worlds offered by all the great, gifted people of planet Earth. A person is depriving themself of glorious new worlds when quick, clever, glib conclusions are made. Open up and receive the light from the Sun!! @@MrInterestingthings
WOW Just 7 seconds of that first 25-1 etude brought me tears... I personally like 25-1 and 25-11 the best. Mr. Serkin made me to love them! So beautiful!
I had NO idea he played these... I really only know his Beethoven (even though one of my teachers studied with him)... BEAUTIFUL... thank you for uploading this!!! It's an AMAZING find!!!!
That 25-2 is INSANE!! I've heard very few people play it at that speed. I play it myself but the max speed I can play it at would be about 75% of this. The funny thing is that Serkin's speed does make sense for this particular etude that is marked presto (but he is probably playing prestissimo).
I found this performance to be quite revelatory since we're most familiar with Serkin's performances of the German repertoire. His Chopin is as good as anyone's and better than most. I can hear why Horowitz thought Serkin was the best.
Amazing how virile ,forceful his Chopin is not the perfumed,atmospheric,pianistic Chopin we get from most. Serkin obviously spent serious time on Chopin&Schumann but it's a decidedly Germanic musical approach!
I've always disliked Serkin's playing - at least, it has always left me stone cold - so this is indeed a revelation. No. 1 is simply perfect (listen also to Solomon, though), 9 and 11 are breathtaking, and 12 is wildly passionate. Was he feeling alright? It just goes to show that you should never 'write someone off' ...
Joseph Laredo Take a listen to davidhertzberg's upload of Serkin performing Bach's "Italian Concerto" at the Library of Congress. Brilliant and nuanced interpretation. I agree with you about Etude #1 as he plays it here! Great! I'll have to look up the Solomon performance. I also recommend highly Serkin playing the Bartok Concerti. Happy listening!
Joseph Laredo Oops! His performance of "Italian Concerto" at the Prades Festival! Also be sure to read album commentary regarding Bach's title of "Keyboard Practice . . . "
Just listened, thanks. I enjoyed it despite the dreadful recording distortion in the finale (sounds like someone had well and truly worn out the lp ... or the stylus!). And out of interest I compared Serkin with Solomon again. On the whole I prefer Solomon. He's more playful in 1 and less hectic in 3 (though you could argue that Serkin makes it a true Presto). And in 2 Serkin is surely too slow (Andante?), where Solomon, at a more flowing tempo, typically seems to be 'doing nothing' with the music but suddenly you realize that you're deep in an other-worldly serenity. See what you think.
This for sure is one of the great recordings ot this work.I always like Serkin since decades. But, and it is a very little "But" ,for me this clearly is a german pianist playing.I am german myself so no problem for sure. But I think that this music wasn't 100% his world.Technically of course this is enormous and there are also much great details and understanding too.But for me not 100% in terms of style.But this is no critic, this are only my 2cent to an really epic recording.
He was of Czech origin,born in Cheb just near the border to Germany. When he came to my town , Torino, I asked him "Welcher Herkunft sind Sie?" And he answered "Tschechisch!!". Such a great artist and very kind gentleman....
It's unpleasant metallic sound , horrible op25-11 , op25-12 is more noise than waves in Océan , it's the recording it seems Serkin is fabulous pianist but here very technical nothing more
#7 is the worst most plodding tempo I've ever heard in this piece. Paderewski recorded it (among other great pianists). And it sounds like Serkin's using a hammer to depress the keys. Sheesh! What a mess! Rosita Renard is someone to listen to in some of this music. Also Wilhelm Backhaus is wonderful. Busoni is tops in the E min. And as always, Lhevinne and Cortot. The last two knew how to sing at the piano. Serkin never learned this and that lack hurts these pieces. Also the hall these were recorded in has terrible acoustics. The acoustics cause the quasi feedback problems and the noise. von Sauer recorded the last Etude twice in the forties. von Sauer was in his 80s.
More colorful beautiful piano sound than Serkin and Backhaus=Emil Gilels Wilhelm Kempff Radu Lupu Artur Rubinstein Vladimir Ashkenazy Grigory Sokolov! More genius than Serkin and Backhaus=Sviatoslav Richter Solomon Cutner Grigory Sokolov Maurizio Pollini Stanislav Bunin! More powerful louder than Serkin and Backhaus=Mikhail Pletnev(Prokofiev piano concerto no 1 by Pletnev!) The Second Loudest was Lazar Berman! The 3rd Loudest was Erwin Nyiregyhazi! Horowitz his technique better than Sekin and Backhaus!!
