Our third guest blogger is Jake Evans from the bluegrass/country swing band called The Stillhouse Orchestra. Many thanks, ed Jake! – Nadya

Virtuosity is one of those terms so overused as to have lost much of its meaning. The word is all too often misapplied to mere technical prowess, impressive though that may be. Derek Paravicini is a pianist for whom the word could have been coined, playing with a firecracker passion that speaks to something primal in the human spirit, right in the heart of where music itself originates. When Paravicini plays, the listener gains a sense of a person driven by the core of his nature; born to it, as it were.

Paravicini was born on 26th July 1979, fifteen weeks premature and weighing less than half a kilo. His twin sister died at birth. As a result of the relative crudity of medical knowledge at the time, the oxygen levels in Derek’s incubator were too high, which left him blind and with severe autism. Derek Paravicini cannot tell left from right, yet he can play Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee note perfect from memory. In fact he remembers every one of the thousands of pieces he has heard in his lifetime, but struggles to count to ten.

Part 1 of the occasionally excellent Five TV Extraordinary People episode about Derek after the jump.

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/1kwjDLHX92w” width=”400″ height=”330″ wmode=”transparent” /]

There is some debate as to whether Paravicini’s unique ability as a pianist can actually be considered ‘talent’ per se, with some feeling that his savantism should leave him unable to truly interpret and express the emotional depths of the music he plays. This point of debate leads to one of the more dubious sequences of the Five TV film, in which an ‘expert in music and emotion’ attempts to test his ability to both respond to and imbue emotion in music.

For my money the question is solved quite simply by listening to Paravicini perform. From the first notes it is impossible to doubt that this is an absolute master of his art, blending light and shade to produce a gloriously mature and rounded performance. Paravicini may not have the greatest personal understanding of the emotions he portrays, but if he doesn’t it seems no obstacle to his ability to portray them. If what Derek Paravicini has isn’t talent, then there are a great many ‘talented’ metal guitarists who need their currency reevaluating.

Much more interesting than ultimately meaningless pontificating about whether or not certain types of ability can be considered talent is what savantism implies about the nature of human personality, emotion and other such ethereal but essential concepts. Derek Paravicini is quite clearly put together very differently from the majority of people. One might draw a rather crude picture of the inside of his head in which the space normally occupied by social consciousness, emotional intelligence and the ability to perform basic tasks such as dressing and feeding himself was instead taken up by his phenomenally overgrown musical ability.

The relationship between the circumstances of Paravicini’s early months and his subsequent mental development illustrates one of the more difficult aspects of savantism and other brain conditions, particularly for those who are not the direct sufferers. Human beings set a great deal of store by our personalities. The individuality of our minds and abilities and the way in which we engage with the world is something which the most atheistic of us cling to as an almost mystical quality, something which elevates us beyond the realms of cold, base rationality. It can be upsettingly prosaic for us to imagine that our minds, our rich and complex personalities and even such giddy heights of human endeavour and sophistication as musical virtuosity can apparently be reduced to a series of switches or triggers. To think that something as a few extra milligrams of oxygen pumped into a hospital incubator can have such a profound effect as to produce a wondrous human oddity such as Derek Paravicini is awe inspiring in its banality.

Watch the documentary, listen to the recordings, draw your own conclusions. For what it’s worth, in my opinion Derek Paravicini has a better claim to the title of virtuoso than any musician I have heard in a very long time.

• Derek Paravicini – Echoes of the Sounds to Be at Amazon
• Derek Paravicini Website

Posted by Jake Evans on March 31st, 2008
Filed under Music, Testing your faith