In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin explored the possibility of a musical proto-language. But the assumption that children are by definition not emotionally mature enough to grasp the complexities of great classical works, let alone create them, underestimates the human propensity for music which we have from birth, or even earlier. It is true that most ten-year-olds are unlikely to be pushing boundaries of tonality and form, and that the more years they spend immersed in making music, the more their sensibilities will likely be refined as they master their craft. “The only things that are left for even the most brilliant of them are reheated gestures from a museum.” “What can be said for certain is that serious art music could never be written by a child,” argued critic and novelist Philip Hensher in 2007, upon hearing Symphony no 5 by Jay Greenberg, the Juilliard-educated prodigy who was then aged 15. People can be very cynical about modern child prodigies – hence the slightly sneering ‘Little Miss’ epithet. My parents didn’t understand why I was so tired in the morning and didn’t want to get up!” “I woke up and I didn’t want to lose the melodies so I took my notebook and wrote it all down, which took almost three hours. Two years ago, in the middle of the night, an entire set of piano variations in E-flat announced itself to her subconscious. “Sometimes it might be a human voice singing, sometimes a piano, sometimes a violin.” “Even when I’m trying to do something else, when people are talking to me about something completely different, I get these beautiful melodies that play inside my mind,” she told me. The British girl is being described as ‘Little Miss Mozart’, not only because of her precocious talents, but because of her inspirations, namely: “Mozart, Schubert and Tchaikovsky - the composers of the most beautiful melodies ever written.”Īs a composer, Deutscher is brimming with charming melodies, which often arrive unbidden and fully formed. A composer of piano and violin sonatas, string quartets and lately a full-length opera, Deutscher also plays the violin and piano superbly – and has recently turned ten. If you would like to see more from Embers Sheets, you can subscribe to his YouTube channel.This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Alma Deutscher. The album made Queen a major commercial force on both sides of the Atlantic, topping the UK charts for a month straight and becoming the band’s first Platinum record in the US. “Bohemian Rhapsody” was the first single from Queen’s fourth album A Night at the Opera (1975). The song has maintained an enduring popularity across the decades and is still discussed by fans and critics to this day. Back in 1976, Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson said the song is “the most competitive thing that’s come along in ages” and “a fulfilment and an answer to a teenage prayer-of artistic music”. “Bohemian Rhapsody” was always destined for greatness. This figure is even more impressive as “Bohemian Rhapsody” is in fact the highest ranked song of any classic artist on Spotify, as the top 26 spots are entirely made up of modern artists, such as The Weeknd, Ed Sheeran and Lewis Capaldi. “Bohemian Rhapsody” remains Queen’s most popular song, and is currently ranked in first place on Queen’s Spotify, with over 2.1 billion streams, making it the 27th most streamed song on the entire platform. This makes it one of few progressive rock songs which made such a huge impact on the charts internationally. The song has an experimental structure, with many different sections with a variety of feel changes. “Bohemian Rhapsody” was written by late frontman Freddie Mercury and clocks in at six minutes, which makes it one of the lengthier pop hits to achieve such widespread success. The young man has excellent taste in music as evidenced by his selection of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, which remains a fan favourite nearly 50 years after its release in October 1975.
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