Alma Deutscher Violin Concerto in G minor & Piano Concerto

[Alan Howe]

Wow! A genius - as composer and violinist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os8fFmEmRZE
She was born in February 2005, so she was approx. 12½ when she gave this performance at the Carinthian Summer Music Festival in July 2017. Her VC is fully romantic, beautiful - and memorable.

The same summer Alma premiered the slow movement of her new PC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kURlp17F1wo
Incredible!

[Mark Thomas]

Indeed, what a musical prodigy. Her precocity is quite amazing and the music itself is a very pleasurable listen, even if it could have been written almost 200 years ago. I wonder if she will "mature" into a modern composer in time?

[matesic]

I find listening to the violin concerto a very weird experience. I started by thinking Bruch, then Mozart, then Stravinsky (the episode for winds!) then Brahms, then goodness knows who, maybe even Deutscher? She clearly has the makings of a terrific player and a highly expert composer, but a child of the 21st century who dwells in the 18th and 19th! Even weirder are the comments on youtube - in a world where trolls walk the land in battalions, doesn't anyone have a word of criticism?

[Alan Howe]

Well, she's only 13½. She's clearly composing in the idioms she currently loves. Let's see how she develops. I personally am glad that there's no online criticism of her: most would probably be unhelpful and some downright destructive.

[FBerwald]

What a beautiful violin concerto.

[Alan Howe]

Here she is at 13+ singing a very beautiful song of her own:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXx9rnK95Ug&list=PL64108521BFB99335

[Alan Howe]

Alma improvising:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz0OAcYknyw

Surely this is genius in action?

[Alan Howe]

Alma's compositional credo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yf_pbVvIWk
Alma: 'If the world is so ugly, what is the point of making it even uglier?' Precisely!

[matesic]

OK she's very young, but I'm pretty old and I don't have time for music that calls for shed-loads of "amazing-for-her-age" toleration. Try to imagine how you might feel if you knew the concerto had been written by an adult or an unsung 19th century composer

[Gareth Vaughan]

Look, let's not get carried away. This is very attractive and accomplished music. It is remarkable that it has been written by one so young, BUT it is not mature music. I do not hear an individual voice here (nor would I expect to): I hear a lot of beautifully written pastiche - pastiche of many different composers, some portions of which do not sit very comfortably with other portions. What is important is that Alma Deutscher is encouraged and trained and continues to compose. As she grows up her music will surely grow with her experience (she still has all the angst of adolescence to get through, for goodness' sake) and she should be able to develop a voice of her own. If she doesn't then she may be admired as a "wunderkind" but she will not merit the accolade of genius.

[Alan Howe]

I think there's evidence of technical genius at the very least. However, as Gareth quite rightly says, this is music by a young, barely adolescent girl and as yet no individual voice is discernible. What will be interesting to observe as she grows up is whether her compositional credo - to write beautiful music - will remain the same and, if it does, how she will embody it in her mature music.

After all, the age of romanticism in music is past. The nearest we have got to a modern-day romantic composer was Schmidt-Kowalski and even his music was hardly individual (although hugely enjoyable). Isn't all romantic-style music now bound to be redolent of a composer or composers of that period?

[matesic]

Remarkable for me (and I couldn't help mulling this over in the small hours!) is the way her music does seem to give you a glimpse into her mind. However fluently expressed in a strange composite language derived from many previous composers, it speaks to me of naivete, gaucheness, childishness. Like reciting Shakespeare with all the hackneyed dramatic mannerisms but not much notion of what the words actually mean. She should write a tone-poem about something that is important to her, like dolly falling out of the pram and being carried away by the dog.

[Gareth Vaughan]

That's a very good description, matesic. Spot on. And I'm not sure that the exposure this early music by a talented musician is receiving will be good for her in the long run.

[Alan Howe]

In fact, although she has travelled a fair bit and some of her music is instantly available for us all to hear, I suspect that she is being quite jealously guarded by her parents from intrusion by the 'world out there'. If you go to her YouTube channel, you'll actually find that uploads are pretty infrequent, so my sense (at the moment) is that she's not at any risk.

As for her compositional ability, we won't really know for the best part of a decade which direction she will take. However, she's no Korngold, that's for sure! This is what he was writing at 11:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbS9hSe_Ek

[Gareth Vaughan]

Well, quite.