Musical Prodigies - Perilous Journeys, Remarkable Lives (Hardcover)
This book traces the stories of 44 musical prodigies over three centuries, drawing on historical sources as well as personal accounts and interviews. It offers much fascinating information about the lives and careers of its subjects and their attitude toward the struggles, tribulations, and triumphs of the prodigy experience. Unfortunately, the author's style is often self-conscious, flowery, and effusive, and his judgments are not without bias. However, the copious quotes give the book immediacy and authenticity.What is a prodigy? Originally, the word meant a marvel or a monstrosity. Today, it is what we call a child (the German wordWunderkindor wonder-child says it all) whose extraordinary musical gifts appear very early and can be developed exceedingly quickly. But like the conundrum about the tree falling in the forest--if no one heard it, did it make a sound?--even a prodigiously talented child becomes a "prodigy" only by being put on public display. Thus, the very concept has become encrusted with confusion. Claude Kenneson, a respected cellist and teacher, never makes this distinction clear, mentioning, for example, the sons of Bach, who, though highly talented children, did not rise to fame until adulthood. Having himself taught "prodigies," he describes their upbringing and training as basically natural and benign, carried out by a "nurturing" team of loving parents and teachers (the former sometimes taking both roles) concerned with providing an environment propitious for fostering superior talent. However, despite the speed with which gifted children learn, this optimal situation will hardly produce a "prodigy" ready to perform at an age calculated to cause a sensation, as is borne out by several of Kenneson's subjects.Ruggiero Ricci's father, determined to make him a prodigy, started him on the violin at age 4. By age 7, he lived with his teacher and had daily lessons; he practiced four hours in the morning and again in the evening, did not go to school but studied with a tutor, saw his parents only on Sunday and no other children at all. Zara Nelsova's older sisters played piano and violin; her father, resolved to have a "sisters trio," started her on the cello when she was not yet 5. "Under my father's constant supervision," she recalls, "we were forced to work six hours per day with a five-minute break after each hour." Violinist Erica Morini also studied first with her father. "When I was three and a half, I played Sarasate'sGypsy Airs, yet he still was not satisfied," she says. Ricci sums it up: "Believe me, when you find a prodigy, you find an ambitious parent in the background."Kenneson acknowledges this element of exploitation, criticizing Leopold Mozart for presenting his children like a circus act, but emphasizes the toll exacted by early success rather than by a childhood spent as a hothouse plant forced to bloom prematurely. Yet surely this is where the seeds of the physical and mental breakdowns of some ex-prodigies in this book were sown. As his subtitle implies, Kenneson feels that the greatest danger lies in the transition from childhood to adulthood, when, in addition to facing the normal emotional problems of adolescence, the prodigy is expected to go from instinctive to conscious mastery of his instrument and from ingenuous expressiveness to mature artistry. Cellist Janos Starker says, "What happens to the bird who sings and doesn't know how it sings? Child prodigies wake up and start asking dangerous questions about how they do things, and have no answers." However, most of the book's subjects negotiated this crucial rite of passage successfully, if not easily, and established major careers. Perhaps this determined their selection, if only because they are the ones we know about. The most riveting, moving chapter is a first-hand account by countertenor Bejun Mehta of growing up as a famous prodigy boy soprano, losing his voice and, after a long period of travail, finding a new one--and with it a new identity. Told to the author with keen intelligence, unflinching insight, and wrenching honesty, it is illuminating, overwhelming, and unforgettable.--Edith Eisler