Rudolf Serkin (March 28, 1903 – May 8, 1991) was an Austrian-born pianist. He was born in Eger, Bohemia (now Cheb, Czech Republic) to a Jewish Russian family. He was sent to Vienna at the age of nine, where he studied piano with Richard Robert and, later, composition with Joseph Marx. Serkin was hailed as a child prodigy, and he made his public debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at 12. From 1918 to 1920 he studied with Arnold Schoenberg and participated actively in Schoenberg's Society for the Private Perfomance of Music. He began a regular concert career in 1920, living in Berlin with violinist Adolf Busch and his family, which included the then three-year-old daughter Irene, whom Serkin would marry 15 years later. Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Serkin performed throughout Europe both as soloist and with Busch and the Busch Quartet. With the rise of the political Right in Germany, Serkin and the Busches left Germany for Switzerland in 1927.

In 1933 Serkin made his first United States appearance at the Coolidge Festival in Washington, DC, where he performed with Adolf Busch. In 1936 he launched his solo concert career in the U. S. with the New York Philharmonic under Arturo Toscanini. The critics raved, describing him as "an artist of unusual and impressive talents in possession of a crystalline technique, plenty of power, delicacy, and tone purity." In 1937, Serkin played his first New York recital at Carnegie Hall.

In 1939, shortly after the onset of World War II, the Serkins and Busches emigrated to the United States, where Serkin taught several generations of pianists at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. From 1968 to 1976 he served as Director of the Curtis Institute. He lived with his large family first in New York, then in Philadelphia, and finally on a dairy farm in rural Guilford, Vermont. In 1951, Serkin and Adolf Busch founded the Marlboro Music School and Festival near Brattleboro, Vermont with the goal of stimulating interest in and performance of chamber music in the United States. Serkin made many recordings (primarily with Columbia) from the 1940s into the 1980s.

Serkin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 and, in March 1972, he celebrated his 100th appearance with the New York Philharmonic by playing Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1. The orchestra also named Serkin an honorary member of the Philharmonic's Symphony Society of New York, an elite musical society that includes Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, and Paul Hindemith. In 1986, he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a guest artist with the orchestra. He is also regarded as one of the primary interpreters of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas in the 20th century. He is generally regarded as a "Beethoven specialist" in this regard.

Revered as a musician's musician, a father figure to a legion of younger players who came to the Marlboro School and Festival, and a pianist of enormous musical integrity, he toured all over the world and continued his solo career and recording activities until illness prevented further work in 1989. He died of cancer at his beloved Guilford farm.

He and Irene were the parents of seven children (one of whom died in infancy), including pianist Peter Serkin. Irene Busch Serkin died in 1998.

A biography, Rudolf Serkin: A Life, by Stephen Lehmann and Marion Faber was published in 2003.