Comments

How does this happen? I am still a little of the opinion that most of us make hard work of the violin the older we get. A 7 year old hasn't even been alive for as long as it takes most people to learn this. And its not even badly done. Oh yes I saw this too! Absolutely adorable. I went to school with him, and was actually at one of his first performances of the Paganini. This is beyond my understanding.
Seven... Seven years old...
Paganini concerto...

Does. Not. Compute.

We had a 6 year old play the 3rd movement of the Vivaldi in g minor with us and he was also very good. How does this happen? Yet we all know that Vivaldi wrote mainly for students. Many composers did this. So maybe the reverse question should be asked and that is why not more. Sometimes I think we get more in the way of our students especially the most talented ones. I felt with both this video and the wunderkind we had play with us that it was a shame that they were hindered by poor quality instruments. I would love to hear them both on a top flight fiddle-any makers wanting to make a few good quality tone producers and playable for this nitch? Just a thought. In 18th century Venice, the most talented children were identified from within the child welfare system and taught by the best musicians of the day--among them Vivaldi. Amazing talents were cultivated and many lives that would have otherwise been ruinous were redeemed by art. Granted, the Ospedale della Pieta may have contained some institutional cruelties. But the model was far more successful than our own dismal child welfare system here in the U.S.

Don't we have an almost spiritual obligation to find out and nurture musical talent, wherever it occurs? The fact that we don't seems yet another indication of our society's spiritual bankruptcy. Music is, after all, one of our species' most promising bridges to a better, kinder, more compassionate version of what we are now.

http://www.BarbaraQuick.com