BOY COMPOSER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XVIII, Issue 1857, 4 September 1923, Page 3

BOY COMPOSER.

ORATORIO AT ELEVEN. DESCRIBED AS “SUBLIME.” Musical circles in Milan are discussing a new prodigy—Rota Rinaldo. He is only 11 years old, but has composed an; oratorio described by critics as a work of “sublime inspiration.” It is entitled “The Childhood of St. John the Baptist.” Rota has no special musical education. He went to school like any other child; but last year he took a course of advanced musical composition at the Milan Conservatory with other pupils, most of them over 20 years old. He made such rapid progress that his mother took him away and sent him back to school, afraid he would injure his health with his musical studies.

He had already begun his oratorio and kept on with it. He had no help and no advice, the work being the outcome of his own genius. Rinaldo’s mother says that the boy's father died last year, and she believes it was in this great bereavement that he found the inspiration for his most beautiful songs. The concert society of Milan produced the oratorio in April, since when its success has grown. It will be produced at Tourcoing, France, in October next, when Rota Rinaldo himself will conduct the performance.