THE NATURE OF GENIUS

I have just been watching the TV series Amadeus about the relationship between Mozart and Salieri, the Italian composer and teacher who lived in the shadow of the genius that was Mozart. Incidentally, I firmly believe that the Italian got a bum rap from the producers of the series as well as from Peter Shaffer, the author of the original play of the same name. Rumours had long abounded, into which the playwright shamelessly burrowed, that Mozart and Salieri had been bitter rivals and that Salieri had poisoned the younger composer. Utter poppycock. Mozart died of a fever. Furthermore, there is no evidence of Salieri’s burning jealousy or that he actively sought to scupper Mozart’s career. It is likely that the two of them at least were mutually respectful peers. What is no doubt true is that Salieri felt intimidated and diminished by Mozart’s evident genius. That would hardly be surprising. As a respected musician and composer himself, he would have instinctively known how inferior his music was standing alongside Mozart’s, and that inadequacy dogged him for the rest of his life, which eventually descended into madness and suicide.

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

That Mozart was a genius is indisputable yet there is no scientifically precise definition of genius. But like Salieri, instinctively we know it when we see it…or hear it. The dictionary definition of genius is “an exceedingly intelligent person or one with exceptional skill in a particular area of activity”. I would add the proviso that a genius must add to the erudition, the enlightenment, the enrichment of mankind. What he or she does or produces should be a thing of beauty, something that nobody else can beget. Of course, opinion may vary; one person can be transported by preternatural accomplishment when another is left cold. But when public opinion seems united in its approbation, I think we can agree that we are on pretty safe ground. Think Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Michaelangelo, Leonardo, van Gogh, Brunel, Einstein, Callas, Pavarotti, Nureyev, Fontaine, Pele, Best, Laver, Barry John, Alexander the Great, Napoleon… .the list is endless. Some might take issue with the last two on my list. How can the actions of a military commander that brought about thousands and thousands of deaths on the battlefield be claimed to have enriched mankind? Military historians and analysts of great commanders will argue that the planning, organisation and execution of these famous battles were nothing short of brilliant, something beautiful in their conception, quite out of the ordinary, only dreamt up and carried out by a genius. I guess all I can say is that genius is not always to the benefit of mankind.

But how many of us can claim we have been in the presence of true genius, on a day-to-day basis? I think I can. To just about anybody who played with or against him, Barry Richards was the best batsman in the world. Even Don Bradman, an obvious rival to that accolade, picked Barry in his All-Time World XI, captained by himself of course, describing Barry as “an exceptional talent, the finest opening batsman I have ever seen.” Few would argue with the Don’s assessment.

Barry Richards. He never executed an ugly shot.

Let me give you two examples of Barry’s genius. One day, he got bored having a net. He often got bored having a net. Sometimes he got bored when he was batting in a match, which I shall come to shortly. In this net session, he turned his bat around in his hands, so that he would play the ball with the edge. The edge of his Gray Nicolls was a lot thinner than the edges of today’s monster bats. He bet that we could not get him out, with him playing the ball using just the edge of his bat. Try as hard as we could, we were unable to win that round of drinks he had promised. I won’t say that he ‘middled’ each delivery, if you see what I mean, as the actual middle of his bat was off limits, but he never missed a single ball.

Here is an example of Barry Richards’ genius. It was in a Sunday League match against Lancashire at Bournemouth. To the bowling of Jack Simmons, an off spinner, a packed leg side field

had been set, with Jack firing the ball in at leg stump. Barry has taken a couple of steps to the legside and played a cover drive – against the spin and inside out – into the vacant offside field. Just look where Farokh Engineer, the wicket-keeper, has moved, well outside leg stump where the ball was pitched. This is a stroke of genius. All of us were astonished at the audacity and the skill. Jack Simmons’ reaction was more profane.

On another occasion, during a match in the Currie Cup in South Africa, whilst at the crease he turned to the wicket-keeper to tell him that he was going to play an over “round the clock”. That is, the first ball would go to mid-off, the second into the covers, the third to third man, the fourth to long leg, the fifth to mid-wicket and the sixth to mid-on, clockwise around the field. Astonishingly that is what he did, irrespective of where the ball was bowled. I know this for a fact because the wicket-keeper, my old friend and team-mate from Eastern Province, Kenny McEwan, told me about it. Nobody else on the field was aware of what was going on but the poor bowler was left scratching his head.

But Barry was much more than a magician, capable of performing mind-boggling tricks. He scored runs on tricky wickets, when his team were in trouble, and against the world’s best bowlers. He was a serious competitor too. But the thing is, he never executed an ugly shot. Every stroke was a thing of beauty that left spectators purring with delight and bowlers tearing their hair out. It was consummate skill married to a perfect technique which exuded that indefinable quality, elegance and genius. And the fact that sometimes he was dismissed cheaply did not diminish his magnetism. We all know that geniuses are often flawed individuals. He was not an automaton. He was human blessed with a God-given gift. In the play Amadeus, Mozart is depicted as a rude, unkempt, ill-mannered buffoon, but his music was divine. Alexander had a monstrous ego, convinced he was chosen by the Gods to conquer the world, but he knew how to win battles, all against the odds in a fashion that nobody had ever heard of, or conceived.

So, the question I pose is this: are the brains of geniuses wired differently to ours? It would seem that there are differences in the way a genius thinks and behaves, characterised by an intense curiosity, a compulsion to think outside the box and a non-conformist attitude to social norms. They really are born like that. They have a genetic predisposition to startle us all and take the world by storm. Their inquisitiveness knows no bounds, they think abstractly, they are prepared to take risks, and they reject routine and the status quo. Such people excite our admiration, but they are difficult, exhausting, to live with.

Let me briefly outline why a genius often finds life difficult. By their very nature, they overthink things, a direct result of their insatiable curiosity. By and large they lack emotional intelligence, the ability to put themselves in somebody else’s shoes and act accordingly, empathetically. Loneliness can become a problem, because nobody else matches up, is on their wavelength. They are self-evidently perfectionists; they find the mundane and the mediocre irritating. They lack the social skills that help the rest of us to integrate and rub along with our fellow human beings.

When I was on the teaching staff at Malvern College, we had an affectionate phrase for our colleagues in the Music Department. “Oh, the Music Department is another country – they do things differently over there.”  They were brilliant musicians, but they used to drive the rest of us mad by not following custom and practice in the organisation of lessons, timetables, examinations – things never seemed to run smoothly over there. Exasperated we were from time to time, but come the next Carol Service, the next Choral Concert, the next Chamber Recital, we would all listen rapt, all irritation forgot, all chaos forgiven. I rather think that is how it must be like dealing with a genius who does not quite see the world the way we do.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven’s death in 1827 provoked an outpouring of grief and respectful recognition. His funeral was one of the grandest Vienna had ever put on for a commoner, almost as if the city was suffering a collective pang of conscience at their lack of respect for a former musical genius of theirs, Mozart, who had been buried twenty-five years earlier in a mass grave, attended by a handful of mourners. Both were inspired composers, but both were difficult men. Mozart was complex, contradictory, impulsive and often childish in his demeanour. Beethoven was fiery, impatient, moody, arrogant and ill-tempered. Both alienated family, friends and admirers but the Vienna of Beethoven recognised for all that he was a genius, and they were blessed to have him in their midst, whereas it would seem the Vienna of Mozart was not so intuitive. Or maybe less forgiving.

“No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.” (Aristotle)