Peter Serkin

Pianist
Longy School of Music

Ut, re mi, fas sol, la John Bull
Six Epigraphes Antiques Claude Debussy
Suite in C minor for Lute cembalo, BMV 997 J.S. Bach
Variations and Fugue in B-flat on a Theme by Handel, Opus 24 Johannes Brahms

The first time I saw Peter Serkin was in about 1973 in San Francisco.  He played Olivier Messaien’s “Twelve Pictures of the Baby Jesus” at the Opera House and it was transfixing.  He was in his mid-20s at the time and had long hair and wore some kind of Nehru jacket type getup for the concert.  It really felt like some kind of Zen hippie guy had permeated the world of classical concertizing and had managed, by virtue of sheer talent and a few connections (his father was the esteemed pianist Rudolf Serkin and his grandfather the esteemed Adolf Busch), to put these worlds together.  The next time I heard him was at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in about 1976 when he performed with Tashi (Richard Stoltzman – clarinet, Fred Sherry – cello, Ida Kavafian – violin…)  That was also an amazing concert, though I must note that the most amazing part of it was hearing Stoltzman, whose sheer theatrical musicianship (in a Stravinsky piece if I’m not mistaken) was overwhelming.

Serkin is now in his early sixties and it was kind of charming and disarming to see him come out in a three piece suit.  I guess one of the great things about being an aging hippie is that you can wear whatever you want as long as the hippieness has soaked down through the layers.  The playing was clear and interesting and dramatic at times, but there is a certain kind of restraint that Serkin exhibits.  I get the feeling that he’s working hard to try to undo that restraint or to push through it and at times he does.  It’s as though Apollo is harboring an aspiring Dionysius within and occasionally lets him breathe free.

The program was indeed interesting.  The John Bull piece, like a lot of Renaissance music, had a kind of modernistic ambling fascination to it.  It seemed to wander, rhythmically and tonally, and it was striking how modern it seemed.  The simple introductory tonal theme was also nice to hear as a kind of anticipatory thread of what was to come: certainly in Bach that melodious simplicity that opens a movement yields to embroidered colossi, and similarly, in the Brahms, the elemental Handel theme opened into wild and passionate forays.

The Debussy was appropriately imagistic.  Interestingly, Serkin’s familiarity with modernism seems to play well with the impressionists as well.  His drifting quality, his capacity to convey the episodic and the not fully formed phraseology that motivates impressionistic music, sat well with the whole thing.  It’s odd how his Apollinian restraint yields in a certain way to these dreamy efforts – but, as Nietzsche pointed out, the Apollinian is as much about dreams as it is about reason and restraint.  More to think about on that score…

The Bach was nicely conceived though Serkin didn’t convey the impression of a natural Bach-ian.  The emphases were a little too forceful and the piece felt a little too presented rather than enjoyed.  The best Bach players know that Bach was a great jokester as well as a deeply religious thinker.  Conveying that in one place is difficult.

The Brahms was played competently, but the passion that Serkin exhibited felt a bit put on rather than oozed from within.  Again, it felt like the Apollinian was working hard to hatch the Dionysian.  As he played it, I actually felt that his face changed – became more sodden and full and earthy, filled out, emboldened with blood and heat.  It may well be that this practice of taking on the challenges of such a demanding and passionate repertoire exercises one’s being in untold ways.

All in all, it was a pleasant and nice concert and a pleasure to see this determined and individualistic artist plow forward in the project of his own development and the cultivation of the real counter culture in nerves and sinews.

– BADMan