Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1877-07-21
A Musical Genius in the Back =
woods.

tanned a short acconnt,. condensed
from the Frostburg JOURNAL, of a
prodigy in the person OF a boy pian-
ist, named William Tagen, who lives
near Frostburg. Wednesday last a
Neaos reporter determining to see for
himself how far the reports of his
wonderful performances were true,
and to give our readers some account
of them, proceeded to Frostburg, and,
accompanied by the editor of the
JOURNAL, paid a visit to the boys
home, which is located on Savage
mountain, about two miles from Frost
burg. 1t is reached by means of the
National road, which runs within a
half mile of the house. Here the
boys father, Mr.. John Tagen, lives by
cultivating small garden, part Of
which is a strawberry patch, which
produces the best berries raised
around Frostburg.
As we approached the house We
found the old gentleman at work in
his garden. He at once came toward
us and gave US cordial greeting,
with very strong German accent.
In response to our inquiry, whether
his son would play for US, he answered
yes, and at once ushered US into d
room whose principal furniture consis-
ted of large wood stove and hand
some Chickering piano. The regular
stool belonging to the instrument had
been pushed aside and rough wood
en- one substituted. On the piano and
on chair at the side were piled sheet
music and music books in protusion.
While we were conversing with Mr..
Tagen senior the young man entered
from an adjoining room. He is six-
teen years of age, tall and slender,
and has a profusion Of dark hair,
which falls over his shoulders, and
this, together with a certain weird
expression about his eyes, give him
the decided appearance of genius
of some sort. He wore no coat, and
his jeans pants were carefully tucked
into his boot-tops. He said but little,
but sitting down at once to the piano,
upon the rack of which his father had
placed at our request copy Of Colts
chalk Last Hope" began to play
it. 1t was an excellent selection to
commence on, as it is a piece the rem
dering of which requires in a player
both delicacy and power, and in our
opinion Mr.. Tagen played it nearly.
if not quite, as we'll as it can be done.
The expression contained in the
music (and it is full of it) was brought
out most admirably, and the difficult
runs and trills on the higher notes
were faultlessly executed. After the
Last Hope" he played the Banjo"
by Gottschalk and "The Music Box"
rendering both in splendid style, es-
pecially three or four pages of a very
difficult trill in the first-named COM
position. Then followed brilliant
variations on Home, Sweet Home"
by Wehli, played entirely with the
left hand. This gave us an opportun-
ity of seeing what very long fingers
the performer had. He seemed, with
the aid of the loud pedal, to cover
the entire keyboard frcm one end to
the other, and to do as much with one
hand as most players could accomp-
lish by using both hands and the
nose. 1t was wonderful. Next fol-
lowed Rubenstein's "Melodie in F."
in which some terrible skips in the
base were done with astonishing neat
ness and precision. After several
other selections the young man fav-
ored us with several Of Mendelssohn'
Songs Without Words, among them
"The Sweet Souvenir" Hope" and
the Funeral March, all of them, es-
pecially the first two, being executed
with wonderful expression and grace.
AS will be seen from the pieces named
above, Mr.. Tagen plays nothing but
classical or standard music, and most
of that of the highest grades of diff
cult execution. Indeed, his father
will not allow him to touch any other
kind. He plays in all about three
thousand pieces. He is extremely
sensitive concerning his playing, and
desires to have his performances az
near perfect as possible. This was
evidenced when his father desired him
to play particular piece and he re-
fused to do so, because he was afraid