Select Genre

Classical Music

Jazz and Blues

Nostalgia

Contemporary Instrumental

World Music

AudioBooks

Relaxation Music

Essentials

New Releases

Featured Label

Recently Added

Critics' Picks

Composers

Artists

Exclusive Samplers

Virtual Box Sets

Highlights

Audiophile Albums

Listening Guides

Lifestyle Compilations

200 Naxos Essentials

Featured Series

Most Downloaded

New Labels

Podcasts

Gift Certificates

Search Options

Music Browser

Advanced Search

Subscribe to our
Newsletter

BBC Music magazine’s June 2009 issue carried a fascinating feature article about musical prodigies. ClassicsOnline.com has recordings, not only of these composers’ music, but in some cases also of the composers themselves as performers. In many cases, the selected works below are examples of compositions created early in the career of each prodigy. Please enjoy these precocious works and best known classics by child prodigy composers.

Juan Crisostomo de Arriaga (1806 - 1826)

Juan Crisostomo de Arriaga was born in Bilbao, Spain, where his father and brother had strong musical ties to the Madrid court. As a child, he was an excellent and intuitive musician whose promise in the field was cut short with his premature death at age 19. His earliest compositions include the divertimento Nada y mucho (1817), composed at the age of 11, the 2-act opera Los esclavos felices (The Happy Slaves) (1819), and a number of vocal works. His opera was given its premiere in Bilbao in 1820 to great acclaim.

	9.80700 ARRIAGA, J.C. de: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2 (Guilet String Quartet) (1950)

	C10488 ARRIAGA, J.C.: Symphony in D major / PONS, J.: Symphony in G major / MORENO, F.J.: La scala di scerma / NONO, J.: Symphony in F major (Concerto Koln)

	8.557628 ARRIAGA: String Quartets (Complete)

	C71052 CONCERTO KOLN (20 YEARS) - Portrait of an Orchestra

	8.557207 Spanish and Portuguese Orchestral Music

Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875)

Bizet won early success as a composer and initially as a pianist. His later career in Paris was more variable, and a number of stage works remained unfinished at the time of his early death, which took place as his most famous opera, Carmen, was enjoying increasing favour. Bizet's only surviving symphony, written in 1855, was rediscovered and first performed in 1935.

	CDS415 BIZET, G.: Don Procopio [Opera]

	9.80475-77 BIZET, G.: Carmen (Stevens, Peerce, Merrill, Reiner) (1951)

	V4964 BIZET, G.: Carmen (Opera Comique version) (Lombard)

	8.553027 BIZET: Symphony in C Major / Jeux d'enfants

	9.80774 BIZET, G.: Jeux d'enfants / La jolie fille de Perth Suite / CHABRIER, E.: Suite pastorale (Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, Lindenberg) (1953)

	8.553278 BIZET: Symphony in C Major / L'Arlesienne / Jeux d'Enfants

Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976)

Benjamin Britten began composing as a child. In 1927, he began private lessons with Frank Bridge; he also studied at the Royal College of Music under John Ireland, with some input from Ralph Vaughan Williams. Britten was a prolific juvenile composer; some 800 works and fragments precede his early published works. His first compositions to attract wide attention, however, were the Sinfonietta Op. 1, and "A Hymn to the Virgin" (1930).

	C10428 BRITTEN, B.: Sinfonietta, Op. 1 / Sinfonietta da Requiem / HONEGGER, A.: Symphony No. 3, "Liturgique" (Stuttgart Radio Symphony, Marriner)

	8.557196 BRITTEN: Sinfonia da Requiem / Gloriana Suite / Sea Interludes

	8.554791 BRITTEN: Rejoice in the Lamb / Hymn to St. Cecilia / Missa Brevis, Op. 63

	8.557200 BRITTEN: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (The) / Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge

	BIS-CD-420 BRITTEN: Orchestral Music

	8.554360 BRITTEN: String Quartets No. 3 / Simple Symphony

As Performer:

	9.80187-88 BRITTEN: Turn of the Screw (The) (Britten) (1955)

George Enescu (1881 - 1955)

The greatest of Romanian musicians, George Enescu was equally remarkable as a violinist and as a composer. Prolific in his youth, during which he pursued studies first in Vienna then in Paris, the demands of performance and administration, not to mention upheaval in his personal life and in his beloved Romania, slowed his creativity so that he was able to complete only a handful of major compositions after the First World War.

	CHAN9537 ENESCU: Romanian Rhapsody No. 2 / Symphony No. 2

	TROY1100 ENESCU, G.: Impressions d'enfance / Chamber Symphony / Piano Quartet No. 2 (Hobson)

	NCA60179-207 ENESCU, G.: Impressions d'enfance / SCHNITTKE, A.: Violin Sonata No. 1 / STRAUSS, R.: Violin Sonata, Op. 18 (Buschatz, Feinstein)

	AV2081 ENESCU, G.: Piano Music, Vol. 2 - Piano Sonatas Nos. 1, 3 / Prelude and Fugue / Nocturne

	CHAN8947 BARTOK / ENESCU: Concerto for Orchestra / Romanian Rhapsodies

	CD98.240 ENESCU, G.: Violin Music, Vol. 2 (Remus, Stan)

	ODE789-2 ENESCU, G.: Violin Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3 (Csaba)

	8.223298 ENESCU: Cello Sonata Op. 26 / VILLA-LOBOS: O Canto do Capadocio

	8.570582 ENESCU: Cello Sonatas, Op. 26 (Buruiana)

	CD98.239 ENESCU: Complete Works for Violin and Piano, Vol. 1

	BIS-CD-1216 ENESCU: Impressions d'enfance / Violin Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3

	8.223146 ENESCU: Romanian Poem / Romanian Rhapsodies Nos. 1 and 2

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov (1865 - 1936)

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov showed considerable musical ability as a child and was introduced to Rimsky-Korsakov. His first nine symphonies were finished by the age of sixteen and these works showed much influence from Balakirev, the self-appointed mentor of Russian nationalist composers.

	CHAN9751 GLAZUNOV: Symphony No. 1, "Slavyanskaya" / Violin Concerto

	VXP-7907 GLAZUNOV: Violin Concerto / Meditation / The Seasons

	8.554049 GLAZUNOV: Violin Concerto in A Minor / The Seasons

	CHAN9961 GLAZUNOV: Symphony No. 8 / Cantata in Memory of Pushkin's 100th Birthday / Poeme lyrique

	BIS-CD-1358 GLAZUNOV: Symphony No. 3, Op. 33 / Ballade, Op. 78

	8.223136 GLAZUNOV: Seasons (The) / Scenes de Ballet

	8.570256 GLAZUNOV: 5 Novelettes / String Quintet in A major

	8.220309 GLAZUNOV: Orchestral Works, Vol. 1

	8.223151 GLAZUNOV: Piano Music, Vol. 1

	BIS-CD-1274 GLAZUNOV / LIADOV / BOHME: Music for Brass

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 - 1957)

Son of an eminent music critic in Vienna, Korngold showed great precocity and impressed even Mahler by his abilities. He had his first public success as an eleven-year-old, with a ballet staged at the Vienna Court Opera. He moved to America at the invitation of Max Reinhardt in 1934 and made a career there as a film-composer, returning after the war to his original métier as a composer for the concert-hall, but unable to win a place now in the opera-house in a changed world. Korngold won success in 1916 with his operas Violanta and The Ring of Polycrates. Still more successful was the opera Die tote Stadt (The Dead City) staged on the same evening in Hamburg and Cologne in 1920.

	8.570791 KORNGOLD, E.W.: Violin Concerto / Schauspiel Overture / Much Ado About Nothing Suite (Quint, Mineria Symphony, Prieto)

	TROY348 KORNGOLD: Piano Quintet in E major / Suite

	8.223385 KORNGOLD: Violin Sonata, Op. 6 / Piano Quintet, Op. 15

	CHAN10432X KORNGOLD: Sursum Corda / Sinfonietta

	8.223607 KORNGOLD: Captain Blood / STEINER: The Three Musketeers

	FA8104 KORNGOLD, E.W.: Adventures of Robin Hood (The)

	CC72052 KORNGOLD: String Quartet No. 2 / KREISLER: String Quartet in A minor (Music from Vienna, Vol. 2) (Brodsky Quartet)

As Performer:

	9.80207 KORNGOLD, E.W.: Much Ado about Nothing Suite / Improvisations (Korngold) (1951)

Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886)

Known as a prodigy performer, by age 7 Franz Liszt could perform difficult pieces by Bach and Hummel and demonstrated a facility for improvising on piano. His first published composition appeared in 1823 when Liszt was 12 years old. Early compositions included Paganini Etudes, Lelio Fantasy, Études en douze exercices, and the opera Don Sanche. All were composed by the time Liszt was 16 years old.

	CA14011 LISZT, F.: Malediction / Grande fantaisie symphonique on Themes from Berlioz's Lelio / Fantasie on Motive from Beethoven's Ruinen von Athen (Jando)

	BIS-CD-1210 LISZT: 12 Etudes d'execution transcendante, S139/R2b

	8.110696 RACHMANINOV: Piano Concerto No. 3 / LISZT: Paganini Etudes (Horowitz) (1930)

	8.557014 LISZT: 2 Concert Etudes / 3 Etudes de concert / Mazeppa (Liszt Complete Piano Music, Vol. 20)

	8.556667 LISZT (THE BEST OF)

	9.80729-30 LISZT, F.: 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies, S244/R106 (excerpts) (Farnadi) (1953)

	TUDOR7112 LISZT, F.: Ballade No. 2 / Hexameron / Die Trauergondel / Annees de pelerinage, S161/R10b, Nos. 4-6 (Dubourg)

	ACD307 LISZT, F.: Fantasy and Fugue on the Chorale Ad nos, ad salutarem undam by G. Meyerbeer / REUBKE, J.: Organ Sonata in C minor (Costin)

	LAN0129 LISZT, F.: Piano Concerto No. 1 / TCHAIKOVSKY, P.I.: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Varro, Rajter, Gilels, K. Kondrashin)

	AM232340 LISZT, F.: Piano Music (Kamenz)

Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847)

Prolific and precocious, Mendelssohn had many gifts, musically as composer, conductor and pianist. Mendelssohn wrote five symphonies, in addition to an attractive series of twelve early symphonies for strings, completed at the age of fourteen. Mendelssohn wrote his first chamber music at the age of ten. One of the most delightful works is the Octet, for double string quartet, written to celebrate the 23rd birthday of a violinist friend in 1825. Evidence of earlier precocity is heard in the equally fine Sextet for violin, two violas, cello, double bass and piano, written in 1824.

	CD98.275 MENDELSSOHN, Felix: Symphonies, Vol. 1 (Fey) - Symphony No. 1 / String Symphonies Nos. 8, 13

	CD98.281 MENDELSSOHN, Felix: Symphonies, Vol. 2 (Fey) - Symphony No. 4, "Italian" / String Symphonies Nos. 7, 12

	CD98.547 MENDELSSOHN, Felix: Symphonies, Vol. 4 (Fey) - Symphony No. 5, "Reformation" / String Symphonies Nos. 5, 6, 10

	HCD12988 MENDELSSOHN: Octet / String Symphony No. 10 / WAGNER: Siegfried Idyll

	8.550222 MENDELSSOHN: Symphony No. 3, 'Scottish' / The Hebrides / Meeresstille und gluckliche Fahrt

	DE3266 MENDELSSOHN, Felix: Sextet for Piano and Strings in D major / String Octet in E flat major (Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society)

	8.550966 MENDELSSOHN: Piano Sextet, Op. 110 / Piano Quartet No. 1

Bach

•

Beethoven

•

Handel

•

Mozart

•

Tchaikovsky

•

Vivaldi

ClassicsOnline Newsletter Archive

Monthly Features on ClassicsOnline

ClassicsOnline is your number one source for the newest classical music releases, standards, rarities and bargains from the most popular independent labels, with the largest online classical music catalogue of over 1 Million tracks and more than 50,000 classical music albums available in CD, MP3 (320kbps) and FLAC (lossless format). Recently honored with the 2010 Best Classical Download Site by the MIDEM Classical Awards Jury, ClassicsOnline proves to have a devoted following of classical music enthusiasts and audiophiles worldwide.

ClassicsOnline offers an enormous range of specialist repertoire not available from other classical music online stores. More than 500 new classical music albums are added every month, all at competitive prices. Other notable offerings include: Free preview streaming of every album/track, special advanced search facility enables you to find your favorite classical music composers/artists/works/albums, and DRM-free tracks allows you to ‘burn’ tracks to an unlimited number of CDs or transfer them to an mp3 player or iPod for personal use. Membership is free, and registration includes 5 free tracks for download. Get more free tracks every week and gain access to exclusive classical deals when you subscribe to our newsletter. Enter your email on the left side-bar under newsletter subscription to start getting your weekly free track.

Some titles may not be available in all countries because of possible copyright or licensing restrictions.

Login to ClassicsOnline

Email Address	Password


Forgot your password	Haven't registered yet?

Home

Labels

Composers

Artists

Genres

Highlights

Current Specials

Search

Help

Login