As a child prodigy, Mozart experienced much of the stress “regular” composers of his day did, but at a much younger age. It is often believed that musicians of classical music experienced anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and insomnia among other health ailments. There is no proof of this (other than documented activity about many of these composers) since there wasn’t really an idea of what mental health was back in his time, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Mozart did experience symptoms of these mental illnesses. From the age of 4, Mozart was revered as one of the best musicians of his time (and still is today), so pressure was put on him to continually be the best in his craft. Though most musicians of the past and present do experience some mental illness that is stress related, it is highlighted when someone is a child prodigy, but why is it this way? People often find child prodigies an anomaly of humankind, and try to find something “different” about them to make an explanation as to why certain people are the way they are. 
As previously stated, these genius or even outliers typically have issues, such as: familial dysfunction, social pressures, addictions, mental health and more. This stereotypical myth of child prodigies having problems is seen in Mozart’s unhealthy relationship with his father, Leopold. One of the ways that their father-son relationship was unhealthy and especially stressful was Leopold’s fear of Mozart withdrawing from his duties to his family because he may “fall in love or, even worse, get married and set up a household of his own” (Gay, Mozart, pg 29-30). Leopold’s worst nightmare came true when his son wrote a letter to him about his deep affection for his cousin Bäsele. Wolfgang Mozart declared that she was “beautiful, sensible, kind, accomplished and gay”. Of course this statement alarmed Leopold! So, he wrote back with “a sarcastic reply, as though to dampen Mozart’s dawning arousal—in vain” (Gay, Mozart, pg 35). It is no wonder Mozart was burdened with the stress of only meeting the needs of his family and how it kept Mozart from living out the desires for his life. Wolfgang Mozart expresses this pain as well as his optimism about his desires by paralleling it in his opera Idomeneo, ré di Creta (Father-son dispute of love: Idomeneo 1:19:14). In the story, Idomeneo (Leopold), King of Crete, threatens his son’s (Mozart’s) love for the daughter of King Priam, Ilia (Bäsele). For the Prince of Crete’s ambitions to be fulfilled, “divine intervention” must take place to force Idomeneo to hand over the kingdom of Crete to his son and for the lovers to to be together at last. In the end, “[t]he gods have decided to let the son best the father” (Gay, Mozart, pg 58-59). Mozart addresses his anger and resentment toward his father because he was bullied into maintaining his obligations to his father’s control and he was not supported at all for wanting a life greater than what his father designed for him. Thus, Wolfgang Mozart’s familial conflict reflects the stress and familial turmoil as a child prodigy because manipulate families can force the child to sacrifice their desires and future goals. The result of this familial control is the development of anger, pressure, and even strain for the child. Mozart would later on best his father by marrying Constanze, which allowed him his dream but caused strain between he and his father. 
All around us in the modern day are a variety of highly talented and skilled people; prodigies. Ranging from performers on the violin, and piano, to composers as good as Mozart himself, and even computer programming masters. Prodigies are all over the place these days. One can easily find any number of them with a quick search on the internet. Some people hold the view that prodigies, while excellent at playing pieces already written, can only play, and not improvise. Why this is, I am not certain, though it seems that prodigies excel at one particular skill. NPR has an interesting article on child prodigies,
What Haimovitz did may have been exceptional, even for a prodigy. Winner says as prodigies grow up, they struggle to advance their talents.
"The skill of being a child prodigy is the skill of mastering something that's already been invented — whether it's Western math, classical music or realistic drawing," Winner says. But adult creators actually do something in a new way. "That's a very different skill, and most prodigies do not make that leap."
Tremendous pressure is placed on child prodigies once their talents are discovered. The parents will want to show their child off to the world, working to get the public’s eye. An extreme example of a parent placing a great amount of pressure on their child is Lang Lang and his father. From about 35:30 to 38:07, Lang Lang’s father goes into detail about how his son needed a new piano teacher if he were to get into the conservatory, but when he met her, she said he will never be a pianist, and he should just quit. After this, Lang Lang wanted to go back home, but he and his dad had burnt all of their bridges, they’d passed the point of no return. There was only one option. Lang Lang’s father told him that he could either jump off the roof of their apartment building, or he could overdose on antibiotics. Sometimes these child prodigies are pushed to the edge in order to fulfil a parent's dream, and sometimes it goes too far. Thankfully everything eventually worked out for Lang Lang, his influence has promoted and inspired an entire generation to want to learn how to play the piano, as I'm sure Mozart must have once the piano was invented all those years ago.
Credits:
Gay, Peter. Mozart: a life. Penguin Books. London, England. 1999.
2 Musiké, te Agapó. MOZART- IDOMENEO 1781 with double subs It-Eng. YouTube. 6 Nov. 2014. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/Ba9K_T5ivTQ
Contributors:
Erika Query, Holly Winter, Nick De Los Santos
No comments:
Post a Comment