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

ISBN: 0786720883

ISBN13: 9780786720880

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

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Born in Budapest in 1903, Ervin Nyiregyhazi (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.

Format:Hardcover

Language:English

ISBN:0786720883

ISBN13:9780786720880

Release Date:September 2007

Publisher:Carroll & Graf Publishers

Length:383 Pages

Weight:1.37 lbs.

Dimensions:1.3" x 6.5" x 9.1"

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Rated 5 stars
maybe the best partial eye possible

By Thriftbooks.com User, February 8, 2010

good book, given the fact that Nyiregyhazi had been'in hiding from the public' for most of his life. I wish there could have been more information on him.

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Rated 5 stars
Engrossing, can't put it down!

By Thriftbooks.com User, November 3, 2008

Am only half way through this book, but can't put it down! Fascinating, well researched and nicely written narrative of a fascinating, deeply flawed genius. Nicely done indeed!

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Rated 5 stars
"Lying in the Gutter, But Looking at the Stars"

By Thriftbooks.com User, June 12, 2008

This book is a triumph of the biographer's art. But the subject of the biography is sad beyond words. Ervin Nyiregyházi (pronounced, approximately NEER-edge-hawzy) was a profoundly gifted musical child prodigy, born in 1903 in Budapest and compared with Mozart in his youth. His first biography, written by Hungarian psychologist Géza Révész in 1910-1914 when the child was only 7-11, is one of the most detailed studies of a...

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Rated 5 stars
How can we approach to a genius of the keyboard?

By Thriftbooks.com User, January 19, 2008

There's always something to discover around the figure of a sheer pianist. Specially of we are talking about the most eccentric pianist the world knew about. You may cite Mr. Gould, but in the case of Erwin Nyiregyhazi we are talking about a sheer artist, a thinker musician, that never gave a affected sound, although he was a Romantic per excellence. When I had the chance to listen in 1976 his double album "Nyiregyhazi plays...

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