Pianist’s Story — Gross but Engrossing

By Mary Kunz Goldman

Ervin Nyiregyhazi was born in Budapest in 1903 and was, as a boy, dubbed “the second Liszt.” After moving to Los Angeles at 25, though, he hit the skids. He couldn’t balance his artistic leanings with the world around him, and his mental problems put poor David Helfgott, the addled hero of the movie “Shine,” squarely in the kiddie pool.

Kevin Bazzana is an authority on nutty pianists. He wrote “Wondrous Strange,” about Glenn Gould. It’s all here: Nyiregyhazi’s domineering stage mother; his 10 marriages to various weirdos; his icky sexcapades, his alcoholism. “He cheerfully folded his addiction into his creative life — witness such compositions as ‘Victory for Whiskey,’ ‘Whiplash of the Alcohol,’ ‘It’s Nice to be Soused,’ ” Bazzana writes. Another Nyiregyhazi composition was “The Massage”: “It depicts the sort of punishing erotic massage he liked to solicit from a large Scandinavian masseuse.”

I found myself thinking of an old P.D.Q. Bach joke: “Grossing, but engrossing.” Nyiregyhazi enjoyed a sort-of renaissance not long before he died in 1987, but many doubted the quality of his art. We hear about prodigies who make it and prodigies who don’t — if he lives on, it will be as the prime example of one who didn’t. Happily, the very eccentricities that thwarted his greatness make his story a darn good read.

Mary Kunz Goldman is The News classical music critic.

***

LOST GENIUS: The Curious and Tragic Story of an Extraordinary Musical Prodigy

By Kevin Bazzana

Da Capo Press

383 pages, paperback, $18.

Originally published by NEWS BOOK REVIEWER.

(c) 2008 Buffalo News. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.