Lost Genius: The Curious and Tragic Story of an Extraordinary Musical Prodigy - Hardcover

Bazzana, Kevin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786720883 ISBN 13: 9780786720880

Publisher: Da Capo Pr, 2007

Synopsis

Traces the difficult life of Budapest composer and piano prodigy Ervin Nyiregyházi, the subject of a first scientific study of child genius whose exploitative sufferings prevented his ability to emotionally mature, led to ten failed marriages and alcoholism, and eventually culminated in his late-in-life renaissance.

About this title

Review:

"Augusta Metro Spirit," 9/10/08"A wonderful look at Romanticism in practice and a fascinating vision of the rise and fall and rise and fall of a man of incredible talent, "Lost Genius" is truly a magical story sure to inspire a wide range of emotion, intellectual curiosity, and depth in the lives of readers everywhere."

Synopsis:

Born in Budapest in 1903, Ervin Nyiregyhzi (nyeer-edge-hah-zee) was composing at two, giving his first public recital at six, and performing all over Europe by eight. He was soon recognized as one of the most remarkable child prodigies in history and became the subject of a four-year study by a psychologist. By twenty-five, he had all but disappeared. Mismanaged, exploited, and insistent on an intensely Romantic style, his career foundered in adulthood and he was reduced to penury. In 1928, he settled in Los Angeles, where he performed sporadically and worked in Hollywood. Psychologically, he remained a child, and found the ordinary demands of daily life onerous he struggled even to dress himself. He drank heavily, was insatiable sexually (he married ten times), and lived in abject poverty, yet such was his talent and charisma that he numbered among his friends and champions Rudolph Valentino, Harry Houdini, Theodore Dreiser, Bela Lugosi, and Gloria Swanson. Rediscovered in the 1970s, he enjoyed a sensational and controversial renaissance. Kevin Bazzana explores the brilliant but troubled mind of a geniune Romantic adrift in the modern age.

The story he tells is one of the most fascinating - and bizarre - in the history of music.

About this edition

• Publisher: Da Capo Pr
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0786720883
• ISBN 13: 9780786720880
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 383