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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.
View Prodigy Composers Part I
View Prodigy Composers Part I
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
| The youngest child and only surviving son of Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756. When his elder sister Nannerl was seven, she began clavier lessons with their father, and Wolfgang, then three, would watch, fascinated. By age five, Wolfgang played both violin and clavier with musicality and precision, and soon turned his hand to composition. His father transcribed many of these early pieces into Nannerl's 'notenbuch' including the Andante (K. 1a) and Allegro in C (K 1b). Wolfgang was five when he composed those pieces, and would compose his first symphony by age nine. Leopold would eventually give up composing, his son's gifts clearly eclipsing his own. Father and son were close, and Wolfgang's early efforts to master instruments and create compositions brought tears to his father's eyes. |  |
![MOZART, W.A.: Nozze di Figaro (Le) / Don Giovanni / Cosi fan tutte [Operas] (Malgoire)](http://www.classicsonline.com/images/cds/others/E8904b.gif)
Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
| Sergei Prokofiev was born in 1891 on an isolated rural estate in Ukraine. He displayed unusual musical abilities by the age of five, his first piano compositions being transcribed by his mother. His 'Indian Gallop', was in the key of F Lydian (F major with a B natural instead of B flat) as the young Prokofiev felt 'reluctance to tackle the black notes'. At the age of nine he was composing his first opera, 'The Giant' and by the time he entered the Conservatory at St. Petersburg he had composed a great deal of music. While at the conservatory, he completed more operas, studied piano and composition and often clashed with other students and professors. He left in 1914 with the highest marks in his class, an achievement that won him a grand piano. Travelling abroad, he met Diaghilev, who commissioned his first ballet, Chout. One of the most popular of 20th century composers, Prokofiev is familiar to children everywhere for Peter and the Wolf, a simple orchestral work with narration that introduces the instruments of the symphony orchestra. |  |
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Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
| Camille Saint-Saëns was born in Paris in 1835 and was introduced to the piano only two years later by his Aunt. She began giving him lessons on the instrument, soon discovering that he had perfect pitch. At age four, he composed his first piece for the piano, now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. His first public concert appearance occurred when he was five years old, accompanying a Beethoven violin sonata. At ten years of age, Saint-Saëns gave his debut public recital at the Salle Pleyel. As an encore, he offered to play any one of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas by memory. Word of this incredible concert spread across Europe, and as far as the United States. At the age of sixteen, Saint-Saëns wrote his first symphony; his second, published as Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, was performed in 1853 to the astonishment of many critics and fellow composers. Hector Berlioz, who also became a good friend, famously remarked, "He knows everything, but lacks inexperience". A virtuoso all his life, two recordings below feature piano roll recordings of Saint-Saëns performances. |  |
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Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
| Franz Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797. At the age of five, Schubert began receiving regular instruction from his father, and at seven, from the local church organist. He also befriended a joiner's apprentice with access to a pianoforte warehouse where he could practice on better instruments. He played the viola in the family string quartet, with his brothers and father, and wrote many of his early string quartets for this ensemble. Schubert came to the attention of Antonio Salieri through his vocal talent, and in 1808, became a pupil at the Imperial seminary. There, Schubert was introduced to the music of Mozart. This exposure, combined with visits to the opera, set the foundation for his greater musical knowledge. Salieri decided to begin training him privately in musical composition and theory during these years, and under his tutelage, Schubert wrote a good deal of chamber music, several songs, some miscellaneous pieces for the pianoforte. Among these ambitious efforts were a Kyrie (D. 31) and Salve Regina (D. 27), an octet for wind instruments (D. 72/72a, said to commemorate the 1812 death of his mother), a cantata for guitar and male voices (D. 110, in honor of his father's birthday in 1813), and his first symphony (D. 82). |  |
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Dmitry SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
| Dmitry Shostakovich was identified as a prodigy while studying piano with his mother at age 8. His recall was such that he could rely on memory to recreate the previous week's lesson without reading the music placed before him. In 1918 at the age of 12 he wrote a funeral march in remembrance of two leaders of the Kadet party murdered by Bolsheviks. At age 13, he entered the Petrograd Conservatory, and his first major musical achievement was the First Symphony written as his graduation piece at the age of twenty. After graduation, he had modest success as concert pianist and won an "honorable mention" at the First International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1927. After the competition Shostakovich met the conductor Bruno Walter, who was so impressed by the composer's First Symphony that he conducted it at the Berlin premiere later that year. Thereafter, Shostakovich concentrated on composition and soon limited performances primarily to those of his own works. |  |
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Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
| Ludwig van Beethoven's began music studies with his father, and continued with the court organist van den Eeden, Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, a family friend, who taught Beethoven piano, and a relative, Franz Rovantini who taught him violin and viola. His musical talent manifested itself early and he was advanced enough to perform publicly in March 1778 at age 7. Some time after 1779, Beethoven began his studies with Christian Gottlob Neefe, who taught composition, and by March 1783 had helped him write his first set of keyboard variations. His first three piano sonatas, named Kurfurst, were published in 1783, and he continued studies in Bonn until his move to Vienna in hopes of studying with Mozart. |  |
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Giovanni PERGOLESI (1710-1736)
| Giovanni Pergolesi was born in 1710, and as a child, took violin lessons, showing a remarkable natural aptitude. When he was sixteen he was invited to study at the Conservatory in Naples. At age seventeen, Pergolesi's mother died and her dowry went missing. The small family entered a very difficult period and it was at this time Pergolesi began composing. The first work to attract attention was his sacred drama, La Conservatione di San Guglieme d'Aquitania (1731), given its first performance by his fellow students at a Naples monastery. Pergolesi was one of the most influential early composers of comic opera. His Opera Seria Il Prigioner Superbo contained the two act buffa intermezzo, La Serva Padrona which was to become the most famous of all intermezzi. It prompted the so-called Querelle des Bouffons ("quarrel of the comedians") between supporters of serious French opera by the likes of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau and supporters of new Italian comic opera. After Pergolesi’s death at 26, his setting of Stabat Mater was quickly recognized and achieved an international reputation. |  |
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Igor MARKEVITCH (1912-1983)
| Igor Markevitch was born in Kiev and moved with his family to Paris, then Switzerland by the time he was four years old. After his musical ability was discovered he was taken back to Paris at age 14 for training as a composer and pianist at the Ecole Normale where he studied under Nadia Boulanger. He gained recognition in 1929 when he was discovered by Serge Diaghilev, who commissioned a Piano Concerto from Markevitch and desired him to collaborate on a ballet with Boris Kochno. Markevitch made his debut as a conductor at age 18 with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. As a conductor, he was well-respected for his interpretations of the French and Russian repertory and of twentieth-century music. In 1970, after ignoring his own compositions for nearly 30 years, he conducted a concert of his own music in Brussels and thereafter a slow revival of his original works began. He died suddenly from a heart attack in Antibes on March 7, 1983. |
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| Bach | • | Beethoven | • | Handel | • | Mozart | • | Tchaikovsky | • | Vivaldi |
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