For most musicians – even the very talented ones – performing difficult pieces takes a lot of practice. Playing a piece for the first time is certainly not something us mere mortals can do perfectly… and we’d never do it in public!
But some musical geniuses are blessed with such fantastic skill that no matter how fiendishly difficult the piece, they can play it perfectly at sight. Here are 5 of the greatest sight-reading musicians of all time…
The greatest sight-reading musicians… Niccolò Paganini
One of the most dazzling musical showmen of all time, the great Italian violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini cast a spell over all those who heard his music. Some even claimed his virtuosity was the result of a deal with the Devil. Others claimed his enormous skill was the result of a hidden extra string on his violin.
In fact, Paganini’s contortionist innovations were facilitated by hands of remarkable flexibility, as a result of his suffering from the rare Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. This enabled him to negotiate the violin at phenomenal speed without the inconvenience of having to constantly change position. It also meant he could achieve huge intervallic stretches with unprecedented ease.
As a stunt at the end of his concerts he invited audience members to hand him any piece they wanted him to play. Of course, he would oblige, with perfect flair.
The greatest sight-reading musicians… Felix Mendelssohn
Composer, pianist, poet, painter and draughtsman, Mendelssohn was perhaps the most precocious musical genius of all time, Mozart included. In 1821, at the age of 12, he astonished Goethe and his circle in Weimar with his keyboard prowess. In Berlin he entranced all with performances of his string symphonies, concertos and chamber works. By his 15th birthday his old teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter proclaimed the boy a member of the brotherhood of Bach, Haydn and Mozart.
Not only was he prodigiously talented as a composer and performer, but Berlioz described his ability to read at sight as ‘incomparable’. He famously sight-read Robert Schumann’s fiendish Piano Quintet at its premiere after Clara fell ill.
The greatest sight-reading musicians… Franz Liszt
Like Paganini, Liszt was a consummate showman – a dazzling piano virtuoso and composer who had women swooning in the aisles. In fact, after witnessing a Paganini concert in 1832, Liszt determined that he would become as great a pianist as Paganini was a violinist.
He undertook solo concert tours on a scale never seen before… The notion of the piano recital as we know it now was his invention, designed for himself, and the virtuosity of his compositions was unprecedented in the scope of piano music. The result was the fabled ‘Lisztomania’ which swept Europe.
Liszt amazed Grieg by playing his new Piano Concerto perfectly from the manuscript, then giving suggestions for improvement. Clara Schumann said that Liszt could ‘read at sight what we toil over and at the end get nowhere with’.
The greatest sight-reading musicians… Erno Dohnányi
A champion of works by fellow Hungarians and the established concert repertoire, the composer and pianist Dohnányi was famous for his ability to sight-read and memorise new music.
At a sight-reading contest in 1930, after surveying the score for the first time, he asked into what key the piece should be transposed… At which point his opponent resigned.
The greatest sight-reading musicians… John Ogdon
Described as shy, gentle and brilliant, English pianist and composer John Ogdon was a dazzling talent. He won first prize at the London Liszt Competition in 1961. He then cemented his international reputation by winning first prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1962, jointly with Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Ogdon was renowned for his sight-reading ability and he committed a huge range of pieces to memory. He sight-read Kaikhosru Sorabji’s Opus Clavicembalisticum, possibly the hardest solo piano piece of its time, after Sir Peter Maxwell Davies found a copy in a second-hand shop.