The Piano Teacher: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

cranny. People indignant about the noise stop Erika whenever they run into her, and they ask her for peace and quiet. Mother tells Erika how enthusiastic the neighbors are about her outstanding mastery of the keyboard. Erika is carried along like a dribble of spit on a thin stream of maternal enthusiasm. Later on, she is surprised when a neighbor complains. Her mother never said anything about complaints!
    Eventually, Erika outdoes her mother when it comes to sniffing at people. Who cares about those laymen, Mama. Their powers of judgment are crude, their sensibilities are unrefined; only the professionals count. Mother retorts: Do not make fun of praises from simple people. They listen to music with their hearts and enjoy it more than those who are spoiled, jaded, blasé. Mother knows nothing about music, but she forces her child into its yoke. A fair if vindictive rivalry develops between mother and daughter, for the child soon realizes that she has outgrown her mother with regard to music. The daughter is the mother’s idol, and Mother demands only a tiny tribute: Erika’s life. Mother wants to utilize the child’s life herself.
    Erika is not allowed to associate with ordinary people, but she is permitted to listen to their praises. Unfortunately, the experts do not praise Erika. A dilettantish, unmusical Fate has exalted other people. But it has passed Erika by, averting its face. After all, Fate wants to remain disinterested and not be taken in by an attractive mask. Erika is not pretty. Had she wanted to be pretty, her mother would have promptly ordered her to forget it. Erika stretches her arms out to Fate. But it’s no use; Fate will not turn her into a pianist. Erika is hurled to the ground as sawdust. Erika does not understand what is happening to her, for she has been as good as the masters for a long time now.
    Then, one day, at an important concert at the Academy ofMusic, Erika fails totally. She fails in front of the friends and relatives of her competitors and in front of her mother, who sits there alone. Mother spent her last penny on the dress Erika wears for this recital. Afterward, Mother slaps Erika’s face, for even musical laymen could read Erika’s failure in her face if not her hands. Furthermore, Erika did not choose a piece for the broadly rolling masses. She decided on a Messiaen, against her mother’s urgent warning. This is no way for the child to smuggle herself into the hearts of the masses, whom mother and child have always despised: the mother because she has always been merely a small, plain part of the masses; and the child because she would never want to become a small, plain part of the masses.
    Erika reels from the podium, shamefaced. She is received shamefully by her sole audience: Mother. Erika’s teacher, who used to be a famous pianist, vehemently scolds her for her lack of concentration. A wonderful opportunity has been wasted, and it knocks but once. Someday soon, Erika will be envied by no one, idolized by no one.
    What else can she do but become a teacher? A difficult step for a master pianist, who is suddenly confronted with stammering freshmen and soulless seniors. Conservatories and academies, as well as private teachers, patiently accept a lot of students who really belong on a garbage dump or, at best, a soccer field. Many young people are still driven to art, as in olden times. Most of them are driven by their parents, who know nothing about art—only that it exists. And they’re so delighted that it exists! Of course, art turns many people away, for there has to be a limit. The limits between the gifted and the ungifted. Erika, as a teacher, is delighted to draw that limit. Selecting and rejecting make up for a lot. After all, she was once treated like a goat and separated from the sheep. Erika’s students are a coarsely diverse mixture, and none of them hasever been really tested or tasted. One seldom finds a red rose among them. Occasionally, during the first