| Abstract |
Born in Budapest in 1903, Ervin Nyiregyházi was a remarkable piano prodigy: composing at three, performing publicly at six, he became the subject of the first book devoted to the scientific study of a single prodigy at thirteen. Managed by his super-domineering mother, he was paraded before Europe's artistic and social elite and praised by many of the great musicians of the day. As a teenager, his idiosyncratic, intensely Romantic playing electrified audiences and astounded critics in Europe and America. But by twenty-five he had all but disappeared. Exploited, mismanaged, and infantilized, he was reduced to penury, occasionally sleeping on the subway, or a park bench. In 1928, he settled in Los Angeles, where he worked briefly for United Artists, playing in some of the early "talkies." 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 candidly declared himself "addicted to Liszt, oral sex, and alcohol--not necessarily in that order." He was rediscovered playing in an old church in the 1970s, and enjoyed a sensational and controversial renaissance, but by the time he died, in 1987, he had slipped back into obscurity. |
