11 Facts About Rudolf Serkin

Rudolf Serkin was a Bohemian-born Austrian-American pianist.

Rudolf Serkin is widely regarded as one of the greatest Beethoven interpreters of the 20th century.

Rudolf Serkin began a regular concert career in 1920, living in Berlin with the German violinist Adolf Busch and his family, which included a then-3-year-old daughter Irene, whom Rudolf Serkin would marry 15 years later.

In 1933, Rudolf Serkin made his first United States appearance at the Coolidge Festival in Washington, DC, where he performed with Adolf Busch.

Rudolf Serkin lived with his growing family, first in New York, then in Philadelphia, as well as on a dairy farm in rural Guilford, Vermont.

Rudolf Serkin made numerous recordings from the 1940s into the 1980s, including one at RCA Victor of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4 in 1944, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Toscanini.

Rudolf Serkin admired the music of Max Reger, which he discovered while working with Adolf Busch.

Rudolf Serkin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and in March 1972 celebrated his 100th appearance with the New York Philharmonic by playing Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No 1.

Rudolf Serkin is regarded as one of the primary interpreters of the music of Beethoven in the 20th century.

Rudolf Serkin married Irene Busch, the daughter of German violinist Adolf Busch, in 1935.

Rudolf Serkin died of cancer on 8 May 1991, aged 88, at home on his Guilford, Vermont farm.