IHFANT PRODIGIES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue IX, 3 March 1894, Page 205

IHFANT PRODIGIES.

The ranks of * infant prodigy ' art are increasing to an extent which is positively alarming to adnlt virtuosi. For what chance has the veteran piano player or fiddler against the astonishing feats of those small boys, who, we are told, leave their tops and halls in the dressing room to come on the stage and electrify an audience ? Master Rhyl Bowen, a five-and a half-year-old violinist, with an astonishing technique, has just made bis second public appearance in London, and is said to reveal a greater talent than did Sarasate at the same age. It is not unlikely that this small Welsh boy will really develop into a finished adult artist, as his public appearances will be rare; and his father, who is a musician, and instructs him, will not sacrifice him to rapacious management. But then there is the pianist wonder, Raoul Koczalski, a poor little boy of eight, about whom the tops and balls and hoops can only be a horrible myth, since the child is embarking on a London season, after a series of 150 recitals on tie Continent during the past year. The ‘over pressure’ system in such a case must naturally be in full force.

Another eight-year old prodigy, Frieda Simonson, is said to have begun to play the piano at two and a half years, and at five performed a Clementi sonata in public in Berlin. At seven she performed B*ethoven’s first concerto with orchestra at Kissingen. This small maiden seems to have developed the commercial instinct in *due proportion with the artistic, her first query on entering the concert-room being. ‘ Are the critics here?’ If the body be not out in f nil force she remarks on the ill effect it may have on the next recital. There is yet another prodigy pianist, the nine-year-old Poldi Spielman, who has even won the heart of the great Rubinstein, who hates prodigies. This small boy is delighting the Germans, but he is not yet booked for England or abroad. Not only is he a marvellous technician, but his discussion of the music he plays and of art in general is called phenomenally intelligent and critical. It was through bis answers to sn art catechism on the part of Rubinstein that he worked himself deeply into the affections of the mudcisn. Recently there has been heard in New York, Isabelle Bressler, the twelve year old child harpist, winner of the first prizs in the Paris Conservatoire in 1891. The little gill made her debut at Steinway Hall on April 19 h, and jumped into favour at once. That she is a genuine * wonder-child ’ there can be no gainsaying : not only has she the mechanism of her instrument perfectly nnder control, but she evinces true musical instinct and judgment. Familiar numbers like * Braga Serenade ’ and the * Carnival of Venice’(the latter arranged with elaborate variations) were played with uncommon feeling and grace and an unerring technique. The little baby was greeted with storms of applause, over and over recalled, and at the close of her recital had to hold an impromptu reception behind the stage to receive the enthusiastic congratulations of her admirers. She is a native of Lima, Peru, but speaks French as her language, and, besides being a very remarkable little artist, is a very sweet, modest and intelligent child.