Music prodigies

Post 121 Talents to be admired

In September 2010, I received an email from a friend in Germany who told me about a recording he made at home from VTV4,Vietnam. In Germany he is able to watch TV programmes from any country he wants. In the email were photographs of young participants taken from the DVD he had made out of the recording. My friend, who is very knowledgeable and appreciative of classical music, hits, folk songs and oldies, said that many would not have expected this to have happened in a Third world country.

It was a very impressive piano contest organised by Dang Thai Son, the Vietnamese famous pianist who won the Chopin International Piano Contest in 1980. The contest was for whiz kids or prodigies from Asia like China, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, and Indonesia. It was won by the Japanese Kuroki Yukini, 6 years old, playing Chopin Variations on a German Air in E Major.

I have always admired the musical talents of violinists, pianists and the like. How
could they remember the musical scores so well and play so expressively with agility. Indeed virtuosos who are music smart are extremely sensitive to pitch, rhythm, tone or melody of various forms. The young pianists gathered in Vietnam were real prodigies.

Anything that is beautiful, in any form, will be appreciated. Einstein, the scientist, played the violin with such passion that one of his female audience gushed that, ‘he had the kind of male beauty that could cause havoc.”

6 December 2011