Alma Deutscher: Piano & Violin Compositions (2016 WORLD.MINDS Annual Symposium)

[Music] what would you like to play for us to start off with well I wanted to play something on the violin and I also wanted to play something that I'd composed myself but that's a little bit difficult because most of the pieces that I've composed on for the violin they need an orchestra to accompany me so when I was 9 for example I composed a violin concerto and I've played that with quite a few orchestras around the world and actually just two days ago I played that in London in the Royal Festival Hall and this is the huge hall with a big Orchestra onstage accompanying me and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra but unfortunately I couldn't bring the orchestra here with me today so I'm going to teach you the cadenza for the 3rd movement of my violin concerto so usually and at the end of a contractile movement the orchestra plays a little sunfare and then lecture solo is to play entirely on her own for a minute or two and then the soloist wants to show off and and she usually takes themes from the contractor and tries to make him sound virtuosic so you can't hear the violin concerto but maybe you can get a glimpse of how it sounds like from the cadenza [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] thank you so much so this was composition yes it was how do you get these ideas well you see I usually get my melodies when I'm relaxing so for instance I have a skipping rope which I wave around and with this giving rope I tell stories in my head and then sometimes the melody just springs into my head and and also I sometimes get melodies when I'm asleep and in the middle of the night and oh I just get them when I'm about to fall asleep or when I'm about to wake up and sometimes I just had this mood I call it's an improvising mood when melodies just flower to my fingertips [Applause] but but okay so you have the the melodies flow out of your fingertips but then you have to turn it into a composition yes and that's usually more difficult because then I have to actually sit down and develop it and turn it into a long career and piece and and make it sophisticated and continue it because you see I love starting pieces and and but it's a little bit more difficult actually finishing there so this is this is my tell us what this is this is my skipping rope how I get melodies and I don't skip with it but I wave it around like this and this is how I get my most beautiful melodies really um you have been helped by turning your ideas into composition I mean you have to write this all down it's a you know painful process I know I know how it is for writers because I'm writing but you you know putting notes re are you getting help with that's with elaborating yes well I have an improvising teacher who actually lives here in Switzerland and and I have lessons with him on skype every week and we improvise together and and also I've been meeting up quite regularly with your vid man now and who is a modern composer now and he's has been helping me quite a lot um I heard you went to school for exactly one day yes you don't like school no you see I so when I was four and a half and I was I was desperate and to be able to read we read and write I couldn't ask my parents when will I be able to read and write and they said well wait until you go to school and you will be able to so I went to school for one day and then I came back in tears I was crying like they didn't teach me to read and write I haven't learned so my parents thought maybe they would teach me for a little bit and and all that home and it got on so well that we continued it and now am i I read a lot so that's how I learn I read a lot of history books and books about em composers lives and biographies I actually saw you back there in the inner speaking lounge reading yeah everybody was preparing for the presentation everybody was nervous you're there just relax yeah and wait but but I mean how about the other scales you know you have to learn a little bit of math I guess a little bit of you know the basics of geography yes you know that's a mystery well yes I I don't have a teacher for maths who comes around and every week and teaches me okay what do you not like it not well not so much if some people say that mascar with music but I don't really agree well and you don't like that comparison with Mozart why not well you see then I don't really wanted to compare with Mozart because I think it's a little bit silly to have competition with him and I mean if he was alive I would have loved to have lessons with him and and I hope you would have liked to teach me as well because quite a few of his students weren't very good and but I don't really want to have competition with him and because there was only one Mozart and I prefer to be Alma pressed Alma than to be a second Mozart and and which which composers fascinate you the most which ones are you really looking up well of course I love Mozart and Schubert I really love and Tchaikovsky those are my favourite composers and where do you want to go with this do you want to develop into more into composition or more into you know the virtuosity of playing instruments no I think you I think I will I know that I'm a composer now and I will know that when I could oh and I am old I will continue to be a composer so that's a guy I love composing I would always be one what's your big dream what would you dream come true well you see I want to make the world more beautiful with my music and because some people and some and some they think that is it's not right to write beautiful music nowadays is not allowed and and I'm just a child but I never really understood why and why why not and so I want to write beautiful music and beautiful melodies and I want to make the world more beautiful with it and it's real true I mean that the music that you compose is really music that you can hum yes I mean it's really you it's just got that inner voice it's it's friendly it's upbeat it's yeah it really is beautiful and and kind of a happy yeah well I'm a very happy person I see that oh so make us happy what are you going to play let's switch instruments and as you're gonna play something on the in the piano what are you gonna play for us yes so I'm going to play another piece that I composed myself and it's called variations so I actually got this the main theme for this in the middle of the night so I was dreaming and I was asleep and and inside my dream I suddenly had this beautiful melody and because I thought it was so beautiful and I woke up and I didn't want to forget it so in the middle of the night I sneaked out of bed and I wrote it down in my notebook and then in the morning I was very tired and I didn't want to wake up so and then I but then I made it into a proper piece which is now what I'm going to play to you now [Applause] [Music] you you you [Music] you [Music] you you you [Music] you [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: WORLD.MINDS

Views: 779,644

Rating: 4.8653846 out of 5

Keywords: WORLD.MINDS, Zurich, science, talks, rolf dobelli, piano, violin, alma duetscher, prodigy, wunderkind, compositions

Id: CTa3k9ZrKkc

Length: 16min 2sec (962 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 21 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/jjdynasty]

Interesting composition, but the cadenza really sounds like different violin exercises strung together... given though she can do double stops way better than I could imagine doing at her age. Her speech is freaking me out though as well...

[u/emartynyuk]

I just got exposed to her this week myself!

[u/Shyguy1028]

Her Piano works seem to be very Mozartian.

[u/foodiste]

What I do think is interesting is why it is that these composer prodigies seem to favor classicism. Mendelssohn, arguably the greatest savant in classical music history, was at heart a classicist. Same with Saint Saens. Event Richard Strauss and Bizet started out as classicists.

[u/Compulsive1]

Speaking of young prodigies. I find Rachel Flowers to be even more impressive. She plays keyboards and electric guitar and she covers prog-rock like Frank Zappa and Emerson Lake and Palmer. She is blind and she learned all the pieces from listening to records. She also has own compositions that are mostly influenced by Keith Emerson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib31-TDH05I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RvBMHXLGms

[u/death_ship]

This aria from her latest Opera is just wonderful