For some reason, I always equate Peter Serkin in my mind with Peter Fonda. Perhaps it’s because he’s like the Easy Rider of pianists. At one point, he even totally dropped out, moving to Mexico and not playing for a couple of years. When he returned, as often as not, he was a kind of countercultural champion of modernist works (he was one of the founders of the new music ensemble Tashi). But he is, after all, his father’s son (sired by legendary pianist Rudolf Serkin), so Bach and Beethoven have been just as important to him as an artist and as a person.

Hard to believe that Peter Serkin is 72 years-old today. On this week’s “Music from Marlboro,” we’ll hear a performance of Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos (the Piano Concerto No. 10), KV 365, with Peter, at 15, joined in music-making by his Marlboro co-founding father.

Then we’ll keep our spirits high, as Pablo Casals conducts the Marlboro Festival Orchestra in Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 5. Schubert was totally under the spell of Mozart at the time of its composition, remarking in his diary, “O Mozart! Immortal Mozart! what countless impressions of a brighter, better life hast thou stamped upon our souls!”

This summer’s Marlboro Music Festival is about to enter its third weekend, with three concerts on the agenda. The festival’s annual town benefit concert will be held on Friday at 8 p.m., featuring music by Schumann, Stravinsky, Mozart, and György Kurtág. Marlboro co-directors Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss will appear on separate concerts on Saturday and Sunday. Uchida will be the pianist in Schumann’s Piano Quintet on a program which will also feature music by Schoenberg, on Saturday at 8 p.m. Biss will perform Dvořák’s Piano Trio in F minor on a concert which will also include works by Mozart and Marlboro composer-in-residence Jörg Widmann, on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. For complete listings and more information, visit marlboromusic.org.

For today, musicians from the renowned chamber music festival take a break from playing chamber music. It’s a well-orchestrated program on this week’s “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

PHOTO: Young Peter Serkin performs Mozart on today’s broadcast of recordings from the archive of Marlboro Music.