As is the case with most child prodigies, my early musical experience was rich but frightfully narrow. Insofar as I was aware of musical greatness at all, I knew only what could come through the activities of my own childish fingers, modeling themselves as best they might on my piano teacher’s own strengths and weaknesses. Music was for me the piano, and my piano to boot. I don’t think I had heard a live symphony orchestra before I played a concerto with one, at the age of eleven. I did not see an opera until I was well into adolescence. Even the concerts of great touring artists were off limits to me, not just because of my parents’ straitened circumstances but also because of the feeling that a Wunderkind’s job is himself to play, not to listen to others. Indeed, I missed an opportunity to hear Rachmaninoff in a solo recital in 1942 shortly before his death because my teacher felt I shouldn’t lose the practice time.

Whatever the gains achieved in that attribute the Germans call Fingerfertigkeit(digital dexterity), the effect of the total preoccupation with self on the prodigy’s later life is profound and often devastating. Few child stars go on to become adult celebrities, and even for these golden few the rewards of highly successful maturity pale by comparison with the memory of having once been an infant savior. For the many who don’t succeed, the contrast between past fame and present ignominy can