Many are the musical prodigies who come before the public, though but few of them reach the great heights of musicianship of which they, in their youth, give promise. Handel, Mozart, and Liszt fulfilled the expectations aroused by their youthful feats.
Among those
whose fame was not so great was Walter Parratt, who was knighted by Queen
Victoria. He played the organ in a Yorkshire church when only seven years old.
At ten he performed all of Bach's forty-eight preludes and fugues without the
music before him, and in later life he accomplished the extraordinary feat of
playing, blindfolded, three games of chess and one of Bach's fugues at the same time,
manipulating the keys of the organ and calling out his moves on the chess-board
simultaneously.
From Anecdotes of Great Composers W. Francis Gates
1897
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