Books, Arts & Manners: Wunderkinder

ROUND and round she goes, and every year we are presented with new Wunderkinder or their adolescent counterparts. The state of musical instruction being what it is today, a young talent with digital dexterity and determined parents can be taught to play well enough to become the latest “find.” This is not to detract from one young violinist, Leila Josefowicz. At 17, she cannot be considered a Wunderkind-though perhaps we can neologize by characterizing her as a Wunderjüngling. Miss Josefowicz has all the proper qualifications. For Solo, her first album in her own right (Philips 446 700-2), she has recorded works of considerable technical difficulty-Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin and a Paganini show-off piece-as well as less challenging works for solo violin. The Paganini is, like everything else he wrote, empty and designed to display little more than finger-busting challenges. Miss Josefowicz sails through it, dominating the devils who reside in every violin, and displaying remarkable technical agility. The Bartók is real music, and she shows more than usual understanding of its expressionism.

If we are looking for a real Wunderkind and Wunderjüngling, we can turn to Frédéric Chopin and the gorgeous panoply of his work. At eight he had made a sensational debut as a pianist; by the time he reached his twenties, as a composer he had gone beyond an outpouring of music for the piano to produce works such as the Piano Concertos No. 1 in E Minor and No. 2 in F Minor-more piano than concerto, but beguiling works in the “romantic” style then in the ascendant. Schumann would call him the “boldest poetic spirit of the time”-effeminate, neurotic, dandyish, ironic, courageous in facing the death that came to him when he was 39, and a pianist of remarkable passion and virtuosity. The music he composed, blazing no musical trails but emotionally and melodically rich, had a unique loveliness and spontaneity-though he labored in setting it onto paper. That seeming spontaneity is evident in a recording by Antal Dorati conducting the London Symphony (Mercury 434 374-2). As soloist, Gina Bachauer is excellent, her free-wheeling style particularly suited to respond to the composer. Byron Janis Plays Chopin (EMI 56196), an album of the waltzes, nocturnes, and mazurkas which made up much of Chopin’s work, offers a more contemplative traversal, and a more sensitive unbuttoning. The touch, so important in a Chopin performance, is there.

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Ralph de Toledano

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ROUND and round she goes, and every year we are presented with new Wunderkinder or their adolescent counterparts. The state of musical instruction being what it is today, a young talent with digital dexterity and determined parents can be taught to play well enough to become the latest “find.” This is not to detract from one young violinist, Leila Josefowicz. At 17, she cannot be considered a Wunderkind-though perhaps we can neologize by characterizing her as a Wunderjüngling. Miss Josefowicz has all the proper qualifications. For Solo, her first album in her own right (Philips 446 700-2), she has recorded works of considerable technical difficulty-Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin and a Paganini show-off piece-as well as less challenging works for solo violin. The Paganini is, like everything else he wrote, empty and designed to display little more than finger-busting challenges. Miss Josefowicz sails through it, dominating the devils who reside in every violin, and displaying remarkable technical agility. The Bartók is real music, and she shows more than usual understanding of its expressionism.

If we are looking for a real Wunderkind and Wunderjüngling, we can turn to Frédéric Chopin and the gorgeous panoply of his work. At eight he had made a sensational debut as a pianist; by the time he reached his twenties, as a composer he had gone beyond an outpouring of music for the piano to produce works such as the Piano Concertos No. 1 in E Minor and No. 2 in F Minor-more piano than concerto, but beguiling works in the “romantic” style then in the ascendant. Schumann would call him the “boldest poetic spirit of the time”-effeminate, neurotic, dandyish, ironic, courageous in facing the death that came to him when he was 39, and a pianist of remarkable passion and virtuosity. The music he composed, blazing no musical trails but emotionally and melodically rich, had a unique loveliness and spontaneity-though he labored in setting it onto paper. That seeming spontaneity is evident in a recording by Antal Dorati conducting the London Symphony (Mercury 434 374-2). As soloist, Gina Bachauer is excellent, her free-wheeling style particularly suited to respond to the composer. Byron Janis Plays Chopin (EMI 56196), an album of the waltzes, nocturnes, and mazurkas which made up much of Chopin’s work, offers a more contemplative traversal, and a more sensitive unbuttoning. The touch, so important in a Chopin performance, is there.