Posted on 08/12/2015 9:41:16 AM PDT by Borges
I'm going to let all you music-lovers in on a little secret: we professional musicians don't have much use for the phenomenon of the Child Prodigy. Six year old violinists playing Mendelssohn; ten year old pianists playing Rachmaninov; and especially *shudder* twelve year old girls belting out operatic arias... or country music... or whatever... on national television? Yeah, it's impressive. Sort of. You can keep 'em; I have no interest, especially when it comes to the miniature singers.
You know that NPR program "From The Top", featuring adolescent or pre-adolescent performers stunning us with their "maturity" and precocity?
I am not a devotee of that program.
If you are, that's swell for you. Enjoy. But most professionals in the classical music arena look askance at pint-sized virtuosi. So many reasons...
For one thing, the great majority of child performers will eventually crash and burn attempting to make the transition from intuitive tot to analytical adult. There was once a centipede who was asked, "When you walk, in what order do you move your many legs?" The poor bastard had never thought about that, and became so self-conscious he never walked again. This syndrome is the norm for talented kiddies. Child pianists memorize intuitively, by ear; adult professionals memorize in the framework of an analytical system. Children who have been learning complicated masterworks without really knowing how they were doing it can fall into a similar state of paralysis.
Furthermore, that "unusual musical maturity" you think you detect in the oh-so-polished phrasing of a Chopin Nocturne or Paganini Etude is not organic maturity at all. It's apery; it's mimicry; it's the result of carefully imitating some adult's interpretation, be it from the teacher or some recording. Musical compositions which express profound insights about love, loss and life are beyond the ken of a nine year old and that's just how it is. Having a good ear is not the same thing as musical insight.
Another problem relating to emerging from the prodigy stage: child stars become accustomed to being the most successful performer wherever they are. They win the competitions; they receive the adulation; they are Number One, baby! They are able to play difficult compositions eighty percent perfectly with little effort. That in itself poses a problem: when such young musicians go on to major in their instrument at the college or conservatory level, they are too often content to continue achieving 80% perfection with 40% effort. It's not unusual that they find, to their bewilderment, that they are surpasssed by less gifted students who achieve 95% perfection with 110% effort. It's the old Hare-vs-Tortoise story applied to the piano. A few of you may remember a child prodigy of some twenty years ago, a Greek pianist named Dmitri Sgouros. He made a sensation performing on the "Tonight Show" and playing the Third Piano Concerto of Rachmaninov at age ten or eleven. My wife knew one of his teachers in America and was privy to the following anecdote: At age eleven, Sgouros played through the Brahms Piano Sonata in F Minor, a five-movement beast to play, at sight. He then played through it a second time and pronounced the piece memorized and ready for performance. Wow! Gee! Gasp! Why, he's another Franz Liszt!
It's now 2012 and Dmitri Sgouros is a musician in this thirties. Is he the greatest living pianist? Does he perform to sold-out houses in New York, Chicago and L.A.? Will he go down in history? And was his performance of the Brahms F Minor Sonata a performance for the ages?
No, no, no and no. He's got a website; plays in Greece and so forth--that's nice, I suppose. See, the reality is that for every Yehudi Menuhin (prodigy who became an all-time great artist), there are one hundred Dmitri Sgouros's whose bright flame dims with age. (I know that statistic is accurate because I just made it up.)
But as much disdain and eye-rolling weariness as I feel for instrumental prodigies (and I've actually taught a few in my teaching career), it's nothing compared to the scorn I feel for Children Who Sing Opera.
As Joan Rivers would say, can we talk? Let's get something straight: opera is to singing as neuro-surgery is to medicine. No pre-adolescent children should ever do it, and few teen-agers should do much of it. Yes, yes, I know all about Roberta Peters having made her Metropolitan Opera debut at age sixteen. Big whoop, don't care. Until their hormones have finished percolating, children should sing (duh) music written for children: in a children's choir, in school, in church, heck - even in an opera, providing it's a role written for a child. with a child's limitations in mind.
Let me explain. The best metaphor for allowing children to sing adult operatic literature is found in Little League baseball. A responsible Little League coach ensures that a ten-year-old pitcher will throw the ball easily, with a fluid, non-stressful pitching motion. Some specimens in the coaching community, however, can't resist the urge to teach kids to throw trick pitches: curve balls, sliders, screwballs, and so on.
The problem, of course, is that these pitches place a high degree of stress on bones, muscles and tendons. However, the muscular-skeletal system of a baseball player in middle school is still a work in progress and, as such, incapable of tolerating such stress without inducing inflammation at best and serious injury at worst.
It's the very same scenario with children singing opera. The fact is that many college-level voice majors are kept away from the music of Puccini, Verdi and such composers until they enter graduate school.
But here's the worst thing, the thing that really drives me NUTS: when I try to explain this to non-musicians, NO ONE EVER BELIEVES ME! ARRRRGGGGHHHH!! Here are the standard responses I can expect to hear:
"Really? Well, it sounded fine to me..."
"Oh, you and your doctorate. You just aren't accustomed to working with younger children, I expect."
"Well, I don't see any problem; he/she certainly seems to enjoy it."
"What's the matter, Glenn - feeling a little jealous?" (Oh yes, how perceptive of you: I'm eaten up with envy that I shall never appear on "America's Got Talent". *snort*)
"Well, I know the teacher, and that teacher is supposed to be really good. I'm sure it's okay in this case."
NO! No it isn't! Not for an eleven year old girl singing Musetta's Waltz or "O mio babbino caro"! Not okay, not okay! That teacher is either delusional or a hack! Stop singing opera! Stop singing opera! The vocal folds which produce musical tones are a highly delicate, extremely fragile, easily damaged organ. Adult opera singers are at risk of incurring injury from over-use; what chance do you think Shirley Temple Junior has? Think about it. That Tweenie girl singing opera is writing checks her body can't cash, even though, yes, it might sound perfectly lovely to YOUR amateur's ears. You don't get to hear her ten years later when her instrument has degraded to the point that a career in the opera field is no longer an option.
And my objections aren't limited to the vocal hazards. Putting a child on television to sing, be it a local, regional, or national audience, is no way to raise a kid. It's even worse when the TV program is in the format of a competition. You do understand that a child with an unusually mature voice still has a child's emotional maturity, don't you? A youngster who has been always been praised for her beautiful voice is swimming with sharks once a Career In Show Business has been launched. Regardless of how much cash is earned, regardless of the fan letters received or the pride felt by the pushy stage-parents, here's what the child faces: Hurtful, snide criticism by the Simon Cowells of the world. Losing; losing competitions, losing recording contracts if sales aren't up to snuff; and public rejection for everyone to see, perhaps with TV cameras trained on their faces as someone else's name is announced as the winner, following the trail of tears rolling down their cheeks. Losing an election for class president is a valuable experience; losing a damn singing contest on TV at a young age is traumatic. Being regarded as a freak by other children their own age The pressure of doing what they're doing so as not to disappoint the adults in their lives: ambitious parents, the teacher who may be fixated on the vicarious thrill of a student's success; adults with whom they spend most of their time interacting instead of with their chronological peers. I know there are highly-educated, well-intended private voice teachers out there in your community who "specialize" in the vocal training of children and likely come with any number of glowing endorsements and recommendations. Here's my recommendation: if your ten year old daughter has a nice voice, do her a favor and let her take piano or guitar lessons. Then she'll have the solid musical foundation and musicianship skills that will pay dividends when she reaches the age Mother Nature intended for serious vocal study to begin. If that highly educated private teacher gives her simple songs to sing with a modest range, asking her to perform only in studio recitals, you may just scrape by without doing permanent damage.
I mean, what's your hurry, anyway? Children sing in church, home and school. Leave the stage and the recording studio to the big bad grownups. Thanks.
Most professional musicians and many teachers are very skeptical. The adulation mostly comes from amateurs and non musicians.
bkmk
It demonstrates complete mastery of orchestration, counterpoint, handling of musical form, and every other aspect of musical composition.
In fact, it is so good that the only comeback sourpusses have to spit at genius Mendelssohn is
"Well, he never got any better."
but he was a mediocre violinist with lots of technical problems as an adult.
He is an especially bad example to pick in the context the author uses him.
Mendelssohn is an example of a child prodigy who never lived up to his early promise - with the exception of the Violin Concerto. The Octet and the MSND Overture are the best things he ever wrote.
Oh and btw very little of the music that Mozart wrote as a child is all that highly regarded - apart from the curiosity of it having come from a child. He was actually a late bloomer as a composer and only started writing consistently great music in his mid 20s.
His scales are a broken up series of spasmodic jerks.
You’re letting your distaste for his antics color your view of his talent. His problem is a certain lack of taste. He indulges in garish exaggeration.
Your knowledge of musical composition is on a level with your knowledge of piano playing.
It is possibly the single greatest song in song literature.
That’s the critical consensus. Do you disagree? With what? Mozart wrote his best music after coming to Vienna in 1781. The stuff before then is not at that level with a few exceptions (9th piano concerto, the Symphonia Concertante). His early operas are not performed outside of scholarly festivals. Mendelssohn never surpassed the music of his teens. Sad but true.
The thing I hate about kids like this in any area is that they quickly become just novelty acts for adults. The kids are really just good at parroting what they see someone else say or do, and adults think that that is the sign of “genius”. They don’t bother to help the child that shows talent in a field to fully immerse them in serious study so that they will be thoroughly educated and be able to prosper once they are older if they choose to go on in that area.
Instead they shop them around to TV shows or put them on the internet, hoping that people will toss money at them (the parents)just because their “pet” learned a trick.
There was once some little boy in the early 90s whose only “genius” talent was being 5 and being able to say the Greek alphabet. He was on multiple TV shows displaying this unheard of ability that virtually any 5 year old IN GREECE could do, not to mention the millions of kids around the world that can speak 3 languages because they live in places where you have to. That kid later went on to do nothing special, because his parents didn’t think past the gimmick and his cuteness.
Lang Lang is at best, So So. Barely So. If I want a “technician” I will hire a computer analyst. I’ll take Mozart for 800, Alex.
MS, you won this thread : )
What a cranky crock of crap.
What do you disagree with?
Mozart said that about Clementi, that he was a technician without feeling or taste.
There may be the need to make a distinction between being a child performing prodigy, and being a compositional prodigy.
Agreed that his earliest stuff is merely ‘good’ to ‘very good’, but we don’t know how good of a performer he was at that age, relative to the standards of the time.
She never sang with an opera company—which an “opera singer” does.
She sang (not so well) single arias from operas.
That is not an opera singer.
May I suggest then, that you get a copy of the music that he is playing and read along as he plays. I think you will change your mind.
A lot of the ‘tricks’ his father had him perform could be done by any musically gifted child. Mozart is remembered for the great music he wrote as an adult.
Are you talking about a lack of fidelity to dynamic and expressive indications or plain old wrong notes?
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