![]() ![]() Plenty of pianists and violinists reach interpretive greatness relatively late in life, but they usually have solved their technical problems on those instruments long before their teen years are over.īut some prodigies are more prodigious than others. The reason is simple: Training on instruments as difficult as piano and violin must start early when the muscles are flexible and the mind is receptive. While all musical prodigies seem extraordinary, the truth is that - almost without exception - every pianist, violinist or cellist who ever achieved greatness was a child prodigy. Likewise in chess and mathematics, prodigies often exhibit extraordinary fluency - beating great adult players or solving very difficult problems - but almost never achieve major creative breakthroughs until their later teens. But they did not begin to write music that can be called original until they reached the ages of 16, when Mendelssohn composed the Octet for Strings, and 18, when Mozart wrote the Symphony No. Mozart and Mendelssohn were both keyboard whizzes, writing music with adult competency at 7. Prodigies are primarily imitative rather than creative. Wind or brass instruments require too much lung or lip power for a child. Their instruments are always piano and violin, and occasionally cello, because miniature string instruments require the same technique as regular models and because the action of a piano allows even a 3-year-old to produce sound effortlessly. Prodigies are programmed by their genes to learn at a very early age what the rules are and to manipulate them with extraordinary skill. The term prodigy comes from the Latin prodigium and originally connoted "monster" or "evil omen," but its meaning in modern usage is that of "an extraordinarily precocious child." Prodigies occur only in music, chess and mathematics, disciplines characterized by complex rule structures that do not depend upon life experience - as do writing and painting. "But I've never heard of anything like it, and neither has anyone else I know." "I don't like to say that anything is unheard of," says Lenti about Kissin's early achievements. Vincent Lenti, director of the Eastman School of Music's preparatory division and a nationally recognized expert on teaching musically gifted children, says that an untutored 6-year-old able to improvise with complicated harmonies and to play by ear music as challenging as Chopin's A-flat Ballade is beyond rare. He was also the most prodigiously gifted child she had ever encountered. "He was a little, little boy, with big wide eyes and curly, curly hair," says Kantor, 72, as she draws imaginary saucers around her eyes and pats imaginary curls piled high over her head. What does impress is a large collection of books - Kissin reads voraciously in both English and Russian - and a large number of records and CDs, including many historical performances, which reflect the pianist's interest in the old-fashioned virtues of open-heartedness and beautiful sound that distinguish his own playing. The living room is furnished with an unpretentious sofa and rug the dining room is only an alcove off the hall that connects the kitchen to the living room. A visit to their large apartment on the upper West Side does not reveal the kind of lifestyle one expects of a pianist whose fees range from $25,000 to $40,000. New York is now home to Kissin and his close-knit family, which includes his first and only teacher, Anna Kantor. The New York Times called Kissin's Tchaikovsky Concerto the best the city - classical music's international crossroads - had heard in years. His appearance tonight in Meyerhoff Hall caps a busy season that began last fall with a performance of Tchaikovsky's First Concerto that opened the Carnegie Hall season and was later broadcast on PBS' "Great Performances" series.
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