Joop van Bilsen for Anefo · CC BY-SA 3.0 nl

Rudolf Serkin fled Berlin for Switzerland in 1933 as Hitler took power, then emigrated to the United States at the outbreak of war in 1939, building a career widely regarded as defining twentieth-century Beethoven interpretation. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1937 and eventually notched 100 appearances with the New York Philharmonic. In 1951 he co-founded the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont with his father-in-law, violinist Adolf Busch, and he directed the Curtis Institute's piano program for eight years, training generations of pianists.