however much he practised in that year between deciding he wanted to do music as a career and starting to do it, he can't have put in the number of hours that is typical for people going off to study music full time by the time he did so, unless the story is very misleading.
I agree. I see this as a savant-like situation, and no one gets to the point where they can compose scores without setting pencil to paper until the entire piece is perfected, or play "with prodigious technique" without the need for any practice, or learn Icelandic in a week, or know what day of the week a given date falls on, through hard work and determination, or because of an enriched and supportive environment, or despite the lack of an enriched and supportive environment.
