BOY’S ORATORIO

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11655, 20 October 1923, Page 6

BOY’S ORATORIO

FRENCH PHENOMENON COMPOSER AND CONDUCTOR AT ELEVEN YEARS. SOME PERSONAL DETAILS. It was recently cabled from Paris to tlie "New Zealand Times" that an audience of 2000 people at Turcoing heard Rinaldi's oratorio, "Children or John the Baptist." Rinaldi is 11 years old, and he composed the oratorio when he vas eight. He rehearsed the whole of the performance, and conducted the closing passage The work was enthusiastically received, the musical critics describing it as simple and full of entrancing melodies and impressive choruses. They say the final gloria is a work of high inspiration. Rinaldi's mother has refused to allow the boy to tour the United States, not wishing his boyhood to be warped! by his musical genius. So far his health is good, and ne is developing normally, though given to occasional fits of reverie, in which he does not seem to be aware the world is about bim.

NINO ROTA RINALDI

A REMARKABLE RECORD. MUSIC AND SADNESS. Eleven years old end already famous, little Nino Rota Rinaldi directed an orchestra in Milan' the other days during the production of an oratorio he himself had composed (says tho ‘'Literary Digest"). As the correspondents tell us, the oratorio, called "Tho Childhood of St. John the Baptist," consists of "a prolog, orchestral intermezzos, and choirs of angels, men and orowds," while "the warbling of birds and the murmur of trees were admirably reproduced." According to an article by Charles Tuohy in the "New York World," Charles Wattine, organist of Tourooing Cathedral in France, writes enthusiastically:— “Are we in the presence of a new Mozart? It may be exaggerating things to bracket Rinaldi and Mozarts names, but it is quite certain that a prodigy has been discovered. I have special Information showing that the boy's work aroused the 'emotion and admiration of all real musicians." Rinaldi's mother is "frightened lost her son's musical future should be marred by a precocious success," says a special cable to "The World,'* continuing:— "Madamo Rinaldi is blind and lives in the Blind Institute at Milan, where her son abo lives A remarkable fact is that the boy composed his work in conditions of groat sadness, his father having died last jear. "Littlo Rinaldi worked day after day beside bis blind and widowed mother.'* HIS OWN WORK.

In a letter tc Mr Wattine, permitting

her son to come to Tourcoing, Madame Rinaldi writes: — "My boy belongs to no musical Institute. He just goes to school like all other children. Last year he followed a course at the Conservatoire, being with men of twenty and over, but as he learned more and more quickly, anxious to preserve the boy's mental "equilibrium, I took him away and sent him back to school. "This interruption, however, did not prevent him from finishing his oratorio, which he had begun at the age of ten and a half, and finishing it without aid or counsel or any guide out his own inspiration. "The Concert Association here, fascinated by his mnsic, decided to have it played, and now the possibility of my son's work being heard in France fills me with joy. "My boy could very well conduct himself—it gives him groat pleasure to do so—but don't you think it would be wiser for him not to conduct at Ifourcoing, eo that the work may be judged absolutely on its merits—that is to say, the critics should not be influenced and captured by their sympathy for my son. "It may Interest you finally to know that I bare been a widow since last summer, the widow of a most perfect man, and it was precisely in the midst of our great sorrow that this child found inspirition for the tendorest of his songs. I am alone but for this exceptional son." As Mr Tuohy reports, musical critics in Milan were charmed with Rinaldi. Says one of them: "Several sceptics are wondering if the creation or his work has not been aided by adult counsel, but those who know the little Nino «nd have heard him improvising on the piano, or who have seen him conduct his work in a masterly manner, know that in this soul there is already a musical world whence he extracts the h&rmonv of his songs.* As enthusiastically, another critic declares:— "The genius and spontaneous success which attended Nino's second appearance was all the mor> remarkable hecau.ee the entire Milan musical world was present. "Tin oratorio is a jewel of naive sincerity and spontaneity. The little Rinaldi expresses himself wonderfully, each part of hi 9 work is simply improvised, giving tho real impression of what he wants to express, or what be feels. "Where has this child learned and how can he have conceived the secret of a work which will perhaps be discust technically but which pathetically seems a prodigy. Perhaps a shy, retired, morbid child? Perhaps nervous, unsociable? N<* indeed. He is happily a strong bov, healthy and gay, who, after he had to bow to a third clapping of hands, got weary of applause and went into the porter's lodge to play. "I£ is a natural musical genius, perhaps a talent which will develop by itself, but for pity’s sake don't try to cultivate it and force it.*'