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Hi,

I keep reading about famous piano players and it seems in every case they were all child prodigies. Are there any famous piano players who were not child prodigies?

Thanks.

Harold Bauer. Lucas Debargue.

The distnction between prodigy and "very talented kid" is nebulous.

Jorge Bolet, Sviatoslav Richter, Glenn Gould, Artur Pizarro were obviously talented children and not late starters, but they were not child prodigies.

I think Horowitz was a hugely able child but not a prodigy in the sense we would use today.

I also believe that being a child prodigy doesn't necessarily mean you'll be a great pianist - sure it helps or so they tell me, but it's not everything.

Yes - depends on whether they were paraded or not. Point being there's stuff you pick up at age 4 or 5 you can't get later.

In this day and age of You Tube .... and the merciless parading of young children who have been force fed music like little geese being fattened for pate foie gras .... the more telling question is how many of these young "prodigies" ever go on to become great pianists? I suspect the answer is that an alarmingly few do. Most vanish from the scene as they reach puberty.

And then . .. how to define "prodigy".

It's also often hard to appreciate the difference between objective talent and relative talent. I'm conjecturing here, but my suspicion is that the reason why most prodigies fade is because they're not actually making great music at a young age (my definition of a prodigy), but making great music relative to their age. It's unfair to these children to tell them they are destined for greatness when their greatest contribution to the genre might just be their temporary ability to do it while looking like someone who can't--the greater the difference between age and result, the better. Of course, you can augment that gap, and create more dazzle, not by making the result better, but by making the child younger. I would be surprised if most people can tell the difference between being struck by exceptional music or struck by unexceptional music made by a person of an exceptionally young age.

If you can close your eyes and not really be that impressed, you're not listening to a prodigy. There are plenty of people who get rather technically proficient at piano and yet have no real voice. With nothing else to distinguish them once they reach regular size, I'm not surprised most of them are never heard from again.

I'm now struck by the image of all these great pets in a shelter, but only the puppies get adopted while the adult dogs, whose only crime was that they grew up and stopped being so cute, sit and wait. And waits. LOL!

Adopt an adult pianist.

They make great companions, they're loyal, they're already housebroken (most of them) and they'll love you forever.

Virtually all great pianists were incredibly talented(say in the top tenth of a percent) for their age. Not all would probably be called prodigies. For example, was Haochen Zhang a prodigy because he could play most of the Chopin Etudes excellently both technically and musically by around 11 and gave his first recital around 6 which included Bach Inventions and sonatas by Mozart?

I don't know, but Haochen and all great pianists were incredibly gifted from a very young age.

+1

Great teachers do have a consensus about young pianists who develop into concert pianists (especially world-class) - they acquire their technical equipment very early on, so that they can develop their musicality without the additional hindrance of technical hurdles to be overcome at each stage. Whether that qualifies them as 'prodigies' of course, depends on how you define the word.

Some technical whizz-kids may well become musically mature at a young age too, but that's not necessary the case. Even pianists like Gilels and Richter, when they first came under the guidance of Neuhaus, were 'bangers' (Neuhaus's term), revelling in their virtuosity more so than the depth of their musicality. But the seeds were already there - and Richter had already acquired a huge amount of musical knowledge from his time as opera rehearsal pianist.

So, all the technical whizz-kids you see on YouTube may not necessarily be musical prodigies (though they undoubtedly have talent to some degree), but at least they've acquired the technique to enable them to develop their musicality without having also the struggle to overcome huge technical obstacles. Whereas those blessed with 'innate' musical insight at a young age but who haven't developed the technique to make use of it (whether because of laziness in practicing or not having been taught properly) will never be able to fulfil their potential and become great pianists, or just 'concert pianists'. They may become musicologists or critics, or.....even composers instead. (Or just win the Nobel Prize in Maths or Physics ).

[quote=TwoSnowflakes

I'm now struck by the image of all these great pets in a shelter, but only the puppies get adopted while the adult dogs, whose only crime was that they grew up and stopped being so cute, sit and wait. And waits. LOL!

Adopt an adult pianist.

They make great companions, they're loyal, they're already housebroken (most of them) and they'll love you forever. [/quote]

I love the image and I hope those piano teachers who don't want to teach adults because of pre-conceived ideas, read it and think about it! This is my second teacher as an adult returning-student, but this one treats me as if I am a serious, concert-bound pianist, rather than one 'over the hill' that should be dismissed. If you read the comments from adult re-learners, a number of teachers won't take them at all.

I'm in complete agreement with you. I don't think it DOES qualify them as prodigies. To be a world-class concert pianist, you DO have to have technical virtuosity achieved relatively early, and while this is not possible in everybody, it's almost universally true of those who go on to become world-class pianists. If we are going to treat anybody who completed that rather necessary early journey to technical virtuosity as a prodigy, then every world class pianist was a prodigy. I think we are doing that more and more now because of how easy it is to thrust early talent on the world and get immediate and reverent attention for it. Normally that would not be seen for another decade but now any mom with an iPhone can show what solid early training and the ingredients for a 30 year old mature artist looks like at age 7. And it's rather impressive, but it's not art yet. It's a party trick.

As you might imagine, I don't think it does anybody any good to start parading young talent around early for its own sake. When we prop it up there on a pedestal, we might even be preventing the development of the mature musician in the process. If the music isn't mature yet, then acting as if they've already "arrived" sets up a false equivalency with mature artistry--at a minimum in the audience, but possibly (and dangerously) in the child as well. Best case scenario, you're forcing that child to undergo a very visible transformation in their music and hope their audience follows, rather than have them start sharing their music once their maturity has sufficiently developed. The worst case scenario is that you are risking a crisis of purpose and worth in the child once they realize that the point of virtuosity was to then be able to use it to make art, not the other way around.

Right on.

To respond to the OP, Jeremy Denk and Murray Perahia have both described themselves as average students reluctant to practice until the bug bit in their teens. How much of this is false modesty, I do not know, but they weren't child prodigies.

One might just as well ask the question the other way around. Are there any former child prodigies that actually made it to a full-blown concert career?

Of course there are, but for every one that makes it, many, many more fail to for a variety of well-known reasons. As mentioned or above, many failed to grow as musical artists and, upon reaching adulthood, were no longer revered for their technique alone. Most child "prodigies" are children who have who have "prodigious" technique for their age and are often marketed by over-ambitious parents (and other enablers) as wonders of nature. To reach their early stage of technical development, many of them were raised under extremely demanding and often punitive discipline with regard to the sole focus on the piano at the expense of their childhoods, development of social skills, and other interests to broaden and deepen their personalities. Many reach late adolescence and early adulthood and realize that they have choices in life -- that ultimately, they have to make their own decisions and live with them.

This is not to say that they were not talented; they obviously were. And many great musicians did make the transition to successful adulthood. Joseph Hoffman, for example. After his monumental debut in American at age 12 (50 concerts, including 17 at the Metropolitan Opera House), the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children got involved and threatened action against his family for exploitation. The Corning family (of the glass fortune) stepped in and gave him $50,000 with the proviso that he not perform publically again until he was 18 years old. He used that time to study with Anton Rubenstein, and to mature as an artist.

Mozart was a child prodigy, but was Beethoven? He was extraordinarily talented, of course. But he was 22 years old when he moved to Vienna to study with Haydn. He was not a "child prodigy" in the sense of being marketing and touted as a wonder of nature. Most concert pianists show tremendous talent, potential, and achievement at an early age, but few of them actually start off making big careers as children.

When I hear the term "child prodigy" referring to pianists and other musicians, I think of those who actually had professional careers (or tremendous exposure) as children.

This is an incredibly interesting question.

I recently had a conversation about this with a friend when he asked me if I thought that Beethoven was a genius, and honestly I could not say "yes", without some hesitation.

Although Beethoven wrote some of the most incredible music of all time it is pretty common knowledge to anyone who took a music history course that he had to struggle for greatness, while Mozart seemed like if he struggled it happened very rarely. Sketches were a common part of Beethoven's composition procedure while Mozart only sketched for the more complicated pieces he wrote.

I'm sure both composers mastered keyboard technique at an early age, but to write full-fledged masterpieces happened quite differently for both. So, although both are considered at least top 5 greatest composers ever, I do not think Beethoven accomplished this as easily as Bach or Mozart.

Were both child prodigies? I think, yes, but in very different ways.

Sorry for the rambling, most of this is just my opinion.

If we substitute the word "virtuoso" for "prodigy" we get a more accurate analysis. A child can possess a degree of virtuosity which is very impressive. We tend to label these child virtuosos "prodigies". They are not. They are virtuosos Some will continue to hone their technique and develop maturity and become great performers. Most will not.

To me the word "prodigy" implies an unusual creative ability at an early age or under an unusual circumstance. In my mind only Mozart qualifies and perhaps to a much lesser extent, Mendelssohn. Why? ... Because they were composing music, not merely performing it. Composing requires a certain maturity and originality of mind. Child painters and child poets are equally rare. True creativity develops in tandem with the developing brain. Some teenagers do reach that stage of creativity.

But that's the point where the term "genius" begins to be relevant. There are some young artists, poets, writers and composers. But there are almost no children in that category with the exception of Mozart.

Whether Mozart was the greater genius than Beethoven could fuel a year long and fruitless debate. I don't believe "Genius" is defined by the ease with which a work is created ... but by the work itself. Many geniuses sweat blood and tears over their work ... only a few have an "easy ride". The product is proof of genius.

Horowitz. He just practiced like a demon in his youth.

While one cannot, with rare exceptions, expect a 10 year old to have the musical maturity of a 20 or 40 year old, I think this idea that these very young pianists are just technical wizards is very incorrect. They may not have the musical understanding of a 20 year old but they often have great musical understanding compared to not only children their age but to the huge majority of adults. That many of them don't end up with solo performing careers as their main source of livelihood can be partly explained by the general oversupply of talented pianists, i.e., the same reason most conservatory grads cannot make a living just from performing.

I find the idea that the very young pianists are mostly musically immature similar to the also incorrect idea that most of the 20-30 virtuosos are mostly just fingers. One only has to listen to the finalists of most competitions, certainly the bigger ones, to determine that this is, I think, incorrect.

Here are a few young pianists playing IMO with a great deal of musical maturity who have gone on to very big careers(Zhang, Grosvenor, Kobirn, Trifonov, Li, Kissin) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M5znHSAPrU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Uqld-iW7o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWR-aZTOWhY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSMJ1gGOzhU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imGD8UsZxu8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gilNaeUsPNQ

I haven't looked at the links... That way I can't be inadvertently saying anything about these particular children.

To my mind, children are terrific observers and imitators. It's their whole job--it's how humans learn. They are exquisitely sensitive to what the world around them does, and how they do it. Microapply that skill to piano with a child with the physical talent to reproduce it, and you get child that can play with what appears to be a great deal of internal maturity, when what it really is is an amazingly accurate recreation of taught skill. That's not to say it's a bad thing--it's necessary and a part of training. The artistry that comes from inside may or may not come later. What I'm saying is that it's often really hard to tell.

I am thinking of one particular pianist who is no longer a child. This pianist's greatest, most sensitive performances happened right out of school. It really DID look as if this player had a lot of really great internal musicality. Since then, however, this pianist has been performing a lot of repertoire that was not very highly coached and trained by masters. When this pianist plays without having had that performance coached, I find the interpretation to be rather flat or even strange at times. Musicality? Turns out, not so much. Sensitivity? Absolutely. This person is and remains exquisitely sensitive to nuance and music. It's just that this player is an incredibly agile conduit for what is coached.

Edited to add: I've looked at the links now. The pianist I'm referring to is not one of the pianists in your links.

I think the pianists whose links I posted
1. go eons beyond just copying musicality
2. only young pianists with great innate musicality can "copy"/understand musicality from their teachers or other performers(if, for the sake of argument, that's what they do)
3. all great pianists of any age to a certain extent "copy" other performers or base performances on ideas from teachers

Here is an example of part of lesson with a very young student on a Liszt etude:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN-pT4aQ3PM

Of course, the teacher gives advice of a musical nature, but could one think that this student is just a good copier? I certainly don't think so! I think it takes great sensitivity and musicality to be able to understand the teacher and that students at any level, including conservatory pianists pursuing a PhD, get musical advice from their teachers.

Agreed on #1. The pianists in your links are all highly musical performers and must have been demonstrating the potential all along to varying (and increasing) degrees as they went.

I disagree with #2 to some extent. I think sensitivity and musicality are different. Some kids are highly sensitive and coachable. But not necessarily musical themselves. Some go on to develop their musicality/artistry so they can apply their virtuosity to it. But some never had it and obviously don't show it later. My point is that it's really just very hard to tell, especially when the child is particularly young.

#3, yes. In fact, that's exactly how I understand it to work. To my mind, all art is saying something about something else, or developing out of something else. The question, to me, is whether or not you've got something new to bring to the conversation. But there is a conversation and it seems to me that you need to know what that conversation is to have anything relevant to say about it.