Musical Prodigies: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives on Exceptional Performance and Creativity

Abstract

This study engages with historical sources, videos on YouTube and research literature to inquire into exceptionality and creativity in the performances of musical prodigies. The first chapter discusses the workings of the “Mozart figure” in historical and scholarly references to prodigies. It is argued that the name of Mozart functions as a figure of exceptionality that shapes and limits the possibilities of exceptional performance by prodigies in the present. The second chapter addresses musical prodigies in the present through a survey of twenty-three YouTube videos. In a move away from the privilege of Mozart-like creative skills of composition and improvisation, this chapter approaches prodigious creativity in terms of the “capacity to amaze.” The third chapter and final chapter offers a theoretical response to Feldman's “co-incidence” theory of prodigies. Feminist materialist perspectives are used to reframe some findings and material from the earlier chapters. In a close reading of Feldman's work, it is argued that prodigies demand a revision of ordinary conceptions of “human,” “individual,” and “domain.”