Serkin

[aqlqep]

I really admire Peter Serkin's control in a performance! Does anyone know him and can tell me how many hours he practices a day?

[darkstar87]

why does it matter how many hours a day he practices? what difference does it make?
He is obviously an extremely talented virtuoso, who spent his entire life studying music. Maybe now he practices 4 or 5 hours a day? maybe more? But even if you practice the same amount of hours that someone like Serkin, or Kissin, or Argerich does, it does not mean that you will get the same results.

life is not fair!

[claude_debussy]

I've known Peter Serkin since we were teenagers. He's an absolutely extraordinary artist, musician, person.   I don't know how much he practices, but it's enough to prepare absolutely flawless performances, again and again.

That's how much everyone needs to practice. 

The truth is that every artist works very, very hard - maybe harder than we imagine.   It may look easy, but don't get the wrong impression: they say expertise takes ten thousand hours, for starters ... I'm sure Peter's spent much more than that.

When I asked Peter how he prepared the double-third scales in the last movement of the Brahms B flat concerto, his answer was deceptively simple.  He said, 'I just got up and practiced them, every day for three months.'  His performance of the Brahms 2nd with Abbado on a PBS broadcast some years back, is one of the greatest ever.

But, perhaps limiting his popularity to a degree, he's an anti-showman at the keyboard - the most self-effacing of artists, delivering what the music demands and adding nothing extra, and drawing no attention to himself.  He uses music, he says, to limit the 'performance factor.'  Music, to him, is not a stunt, or feat of skill.  He's the most Apollonian artist I know, a pianist's pianist. 

A pure servant of music, in the very highest sense.

Many of his greatest performances were ones I heard live - a pathbreaking Messiaen 'Vingt Regards' with a light show, for example, or his 1974 performance of the Beethoven 4th concerto with Leon Kirchner conducting the Harvard Summer Orchestra, a desert-island performance of the piece, breathtaking still decades later.  It's not available publicly, and many of Peter's commercial recordings are getting rare. 

Collect any you can - his Diabelli Variations is one of the best of Beethoven's last major work for piano, technically meticulous and profoundly felt.  His Hammerklavier, on a fortepiano, is likewise spellbinding, despite the very different sound of a period instrument that allows a kind of clarity and quickness Peter Serkin finds in the vast structure of Beethoven's most challenging sonata. 

Some time back Peter asked me for any recordings I might have of his live performances, and I pass that request on to those who are reading this - if you have a recording of a live Peter Serkin performance, leave me a message if you like -

Finally, yes, *life is fair,* you will get results and your work practicing will pay off, if you do it with painstaking effort, faithfully and as well as you can, over a sustained course of time, with the 'deliberate intent' to improve, as expertise psychologist Ericsson defines it.  Like Ericsson, I am not a believer in 'talent' because there's absolutely no scientific evidence to prove that it exists.  The only way is through hard, hard work.  Besides, how else were you going to get there? 

But with the sound of a great artist in your mind, the way forward opens, for both listeners and aspiring performers. 

Listen to Peter Serkin and see what it does for your playing.

A pianist's pianist, perhaps the greatest of our generation.   

Regards to all,

- Claude Debussy   


PS - Peter Serkin's career also includes performances of many fiendishly difficult modern pieces, including works by Takemitsu, Lieberson, Wourinen, Wolpe and others, many of which he's commissioned, premiered and recorded.  Particularly noteworthy is the beautiful quadruple concerto and chamber work - it exists in two versions - of Takemitsu's called "Quatrain," just one example among many, giving Peter's career a historical significance that few can match.  - CD

[aqlqep]

Thank you CLaude Debussy for that wonderful post on Peter Serkin, I really admire his playing and he's been a great inspiration to me for years!
By the way, you mentioned the PBS broadcast of Brahms concerto #2, I have been trying to get a copy of that video but haven't found it anywhere, do you know where could I buy it?