The Masterclass by William Pei Shih
Not so long ago, when I used to play the piano, a well-respected Record Producer approached me at the Music Festival in New England to say that they had heard of my name, and some good things about my piano playing, and asked if I would like to sit down for coffee in order to discuss the prospect of signing me and recording an album together—a debut album: The Rach 3rd. Few pianists were attempting to record the piece at the time, and the Record Producer had already heard of my interpretation of the Rach 2nd and not to mention, the Rach 1st, and also my performance of the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, the collection of Rachmaninoff’s 24 Preludes and the Études-Tableaux, and so on. “It sounds like you’ve done some fascinating work so far with Rachmaninoff,” they told me. So of course, I said yes.
I had recently graduated from the Conservatory, where I had studied with my Piano Teacher, whom I had chosen to study with because I was enamored by them—a once stellar prospect of a career, and who had made some good recordings on Mendelssohn, but was now Head of the Conservatory, and who was renowned in their own right, and known to be a “star-maker.” And because we had come from that same lineage of piano performance (the Russian School: Pletnev, Yablonskaya, Kaplinsky)—I had hoped that they might understand something of my own piano playing, and more importantly, the intentions of that kind of performance, and where I might be headed with such similarly played music. But that was the problem. And I was only to find that my Piano Teacher understood all too well what this meant, perhaps much better than I could have understood what our kind of piano playing actually entailed, and the nuances of all the obstacles required to play and perform it, especially in the context of the music world’s status quo—another kind of mediocrity that was also the most difficult to convince.
I was working on Rachmaninoff. The 3rd Piano Concerto in D minor, Op. 30. Other piano teachers along the way said that it was typical of someone like me to be working on something like Rachmaninoff—especially the 3rd —known to be the most technically difficult of all the Rach concertos. But in truth, I knew that the Rach 3rd was thought to be too difficult for most, and that many other peoples’ imaginations at the Conservatory had faded in a way that mine was only beginning to burgeon. This is not to say that I thought myself to be a superior pianist. On the contrary. It only meant that I was younger and not yet overwhelmed by such heights and conquests. My muscles, still limber. My mind, still fresh, and still unaffected by the culmination of the minuscule and social media. It was what I had to work with, and work with it I did. Again, that was then.
Now we were all at the Music Festival together in New England, and my Piano Teacher, that well-known and widely respected pianist with long fingers that cast even longer shadows—who I had wished in all my time at the Conservatory to notice me in the way that a coach might notice and pass along their expertise to a budding younger athlete—must have seen me and the Record Producer talking together. And from the corner of my eye, I watched as my Piano Teacher made their way over across the verdant lawn (as it was the height of summer) toward us, and come to say hello to me, and I was nothing short of—elated. Up until then, my Piano Teacher’s schedule had been too busy or full to spend any meaningful time with me—at the Festival, and even during our three years at the Conservatory together. In fact, in the three or so years that I was their student, they canceled many of our lessons, so much so that I came to suspect that they didn’t want to teach me any longer, for fear that I might learn too much. But each instance we passed each other, each instance we nodded our heads and said “hello,” whether in a hallway of the Conservatory, or at a concert hall, or practice room, they would always say how important it was that we should make some time when we could, in the near future, in order to catch up. Though I always got the impression that they were only paying me a kind of lip service, in order to wave me away, get me off their plate, so to speak. Now I introduced my Piano Teacher to the Record Producer—though of course, they both already knew of each other, as the Classical Music World is a small and dwindling world, becoming gradually more claustrophobic with each passing year, especially for us pianists and those shrinking listeners of instrumental music—with the exception of blockbuster film scores of movies like Titanic, that is. But even that was limited.
My Piano Teacher then saw that we were going to sit down for coffee, and to my utter delight (and even excitement)—which I had to find the strength in me to suppress—asked if they could join us. It was shortly before the Masterclass that my Piano Teacher was about to give at the Festival, and since we had a few moments to spare, I said, “Of course,” because in truth, in all of my time of studying with my Piano Teacher, for one reason or another, the music of other people (other more important and promising students), kept getting in the way. And it had occurred to me that I rarely ever had the opportunity to talk with my Piano Teacher in any authentic nor meaningful manner—as naturally, there were always one too many talented pianists at the Conservatory who not only craved the same kind of attention from my Piano Teacher that I did, but also sought to impress upon them their own talents, as a means of advancing their own careers in the small world that was known to be concert music. And so there were other factors that came to play, so to speak. For instance, those who were beautiful went to the front of the line. Then there were those who were well-connected. Or those with already famous last names like Lang or Gbala or Ferrandez or Jones, also moved ahead. Those who were rising stars, especially those who my Piano Teacher believed might provide a favorable review in the near future, riding on the tail ends of such comets, because my Piano Teacher was actually foremost, a pianist—in want of an audience.
At the table, my Piano Teacher took a seat directly across from the Record Producer, an appropriate place, I rationalized, for someone of their influential stature—for which I even pulled out their chair as a reflex of respect: a hangover from my days at the Conservatory—a kind of Stockholm Syndrome that I myself and many former students of the Conservatory would be unable to shake in the years following our graduation. I look back on that time now and think how young and uncomplicated I must have appeared, and worse, someone with nothing that could be gained, as I was not from a wealthy family, or someone well-connected, which mattered very much to my calculating Piano Teacher, especially in terms of future donors to the Conservatory. Nevertheless, I took a place at the side of my Piano Teacher, the only seat that was left, and I watched on, as at first, they spoke of the weather, which had been mostly sunny, and then of the solar eclipse that had passed the previous day like an omen.
“Hopefully a good omen,” my Piano Teacher noted.
Then they both spoke of their children—also aspiring pianists. In fact, my Piano Teacher said that I was skilled, quite skilled, at instructing children the piano—as I had previously given lessons to their own children as well, and how I had a way with kids as if something about me would always be stunted and left to the realm of the childish, whereas they themselves couldn’t even bother to get their own children to sit still, let alone play Mozart, etc., etc.
The Record Producer seemed impressed.
I thought back to how when I was teaching my Piano Teacher’s children on their Steinway & Sons Model D: The concert grand (the kind of piano that conveyed what you asked it to), and how I endeavored to become the teacher that I had always wanted, but never had for myself. Of course it would then dawn on me that my Piano Teacher’s children had already had all the best teachers at their disposal and all the opportunities to excel (no doubt brought about by my Piano Teacher’s influence and platform), and were already being set up for success in a way that I myself would never have known to exist, had it not been for my little bit of inspiration and the second hand upright piano that I practiced on in the decade or so before I entered the Conservatory (I had auditioned with the Rach 1st). And maybe a part of me had wished that my own Piano Teacher would have been that symbol of a teacher for me, for I could have really benefitted from the kind of mentorship and advocacy during my time at the Conservatory, while I was feeling my way through each progressive chord of the Rachmaninoff 3rd. Instead I had been met with more discouragement, more disillusionment—another kind of lesson to learn. And they were again, always very busy, as someone in their position would no doubt be, and would be obligated to save their time and attention for more lucrative opportunities—the best of them, schmoozing with the likes of so and so, who had just delivered a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall, playing the Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 in B♭ minor, Op. 23, and who might one day, in the not so distant future, become a judge of a competition that my Piano Teacher may enter themselves, and would endeavor to win. So besides teaching myself the Rach 3rd, I had also taught myself how to be understanding—how to wait my turn, even if that turn would never seem to arrive. And how to savor the hope that I would one day be noticed for my meticulous music. It didn’t matter that I had moved across the country in order to study at the Conservatory, and to study with my Piano Teacher, and then having to wander in a kind of purgatory of thought or hope that a friendship between like-minded pianists with the same lineage of piano playing such as us might blossom. Of course I didn’t realize then that being like-minded was actually too much the issue here, too much the problem, for my Piano Teacher sought to be the only one of our Rachmaninoff-playing kind. And I suppose, the fewer that existed, the better. Or none at all, so they could be the only one to stand out in the relief of other players.
But now how my Piano Teacher’s face lit up when they went on to speak to the Record Producer of other prominent students at the Conservatory, other people who they’d taught throughout their lengthy teaching career—that their long fingers had carefully caressed and guided, and made to be in their debt, those who had gone on to cast their own shadows in the music world—many former students who were already superstars in their own right, who no longer felt the need to thank my Piano Teacher as they were nominated for numerous Grammy Awards and American Music Awards, and the like, playing in such venues like Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center, and the Royal Albert Hall in London, and in cities like Prague or Tokyo or Cairo or Lagos.
Then there were the students who were already rising stars—for example, so and so who was coming out with an album on The Goldberg Variations, which was likely to be very good, a “game changer” for how The Goldberg Variations had been currently perceived for the last four centuries, since the time of Johann Sebastian Bach. Another so and so who was coming out with an album of Schubert Impromptus, also likely to be very good—because these were students from the Conservatory, the school, already famous for producing wondrous instrumentalists, along with stellar recordings of classical music, most notably debuts—performances that were given the benefit of the doubt and raved about, most notably for their potential. Did anyone expect anything less? Another so and so who was working on a collection of miscellaneous pieces by Debussy and Ravel, in conversation.
At this point, I could see that the Record Producer was beyond enchanted with what they were hearing, and even knew of the other record producers that many of these debut pianists had been signed to and were currently working with, and even went on to ask my Piano Teacher if they might let them visit the Conservatory, in order to see for themselves some of the talent that was being developed, and perhaps recruit a few more instrumentalists or vocalists to their own roster, as all record producers (whether they admitted it or not) were constantly on the lookout for new talent: debuts—to which my Piano Teacher only smiled and said with what I thought was a tinge of bitterness, “Of course—debuts.” Then, “But surely, there is room for more seasoned performers?”
“It depends.”
“I understand. After all, I am the Head of a well-known Conservatory.”
Still they would exchange numbers. “Have your people call my people,” my Piano Teacher said. They shared a laugh.
The Record Producer then said, “Well, I am my people.”
More laughter ensued.
Then my Piano Teacher noted what they themselves were working on—a fantastic piece of music, something unimaginable, perhaps underrepresented in this day, this age, and lo and behold, when the time came, they might be in search of a record producer as well, someone new, and sooner rather than later, because, “Well, you know, it’s almost complete.”
“Oh, I see.”
“That is, if the right Record Producer came along, I could be persuaded to switch. If I had the right offer, that is.”
“I see.”
And yet, my Piano Teacher didn’t volunteer the information outright. Up until then, my Piano Teacher had already made a series of recordings: a collection of Mozart Sonatas, a Robert Schumann album, a collection of duets from the Romantic era that was rereleased for its 25th anniversary, since its own debut. In reality (and it took me some time to realize this), many of the people who listened to these recordings were mostly prospective students (including me)—those who had dreams of attending the Conservatory and making recordings of piano music themselves one day. And they listened thoroughly to my Piano Teacher’s albums and found every nugget of a good thing that they could elaborate upon in order to tell my Piano Teacher as if they were reenacting “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” And it was easier for my Piano Teacher to believe them, even if people would overdo it sometimes, for in reality, most listeners outside the world of the Conservatory did not know of my Piano Teacher’s albums. And if they did, it was only that they were the albums by the Head of a well-known Conservatory, and not quite the work of a craftsman, let alone, a genius. But I knew that my Piano Teacher deserved much more credit than this—for they studied intensely the performances of Cliburn and Argerich, and even Rachmaninoff too, and when I listened carefully to these recordings by my Piano Teacher, I could see that this was no doubt true. Too bad it was evident of so many other pianists as well, including myself, a dime a dozen.
The Record Producer then asked my Piano Teacher what it was that they were working on, and my Piano Teacher could no longer hold back: Rachmaninoff—a reinterpretation of the 4th Concerto: redone, and perhaps, better than ever. “And hopefully to be recorded with a first tier orchestra, like the Philharmonic.”
“Oh! The 4th!” A look of surprise, even awe, crossed the Record Producer’s face. My Piano Teacher reciprocated. “People don’t usually record the 4th, do they?”
“Exactly.”
“Well we certainly need more Rachmaninoff recordings these days, more than ever, I suppose.”
“Don’t we?”
“Otherwise Rachmaninoff will run the risk of being forgotten one day, overshadowed by the likes of Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande.”
“I do agree!”
Finally, the Record Producer turned to me and asked what I was working on. And it felt like the moment of truth, one that I had been waiting for all my life. The hours that I had combed through each beating heart of the Rachmaninoff 3rd, the late nights (several of them flashed before my mind’s eye). Then our lessons together, where once my Piano Teacher had been moved enough by my playing to say, “not bad,” before gathering themself up and becoming all the more withdrawn again. I thought of my lessons with their children, too, even teaching them the opening theme of the 3rd Rach Concerto, and giving them a break from Mozart’s Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, as if I was preparing their fingers for other, more interesting and difficult prospects to come.
My Piano Teacher seemed taken aback by what the Record Producer was asking me, but then they cut in to say, as if I was no longer present, “Well if I’m to be honest, they’re really all over the place. That is the problem. They’re playing everything these days—Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Gershwin—and I’d have to say, they’re still a work in progress, and not quite ready to record an album, especially a Rachmaninoff album.” My Piano Teacher then turned to look at the Record Producer, and into their fading gray eyes. “But, but, but . . . if you need a piano teacher for your children, this person right here, is the one to ask.”
“Is that so?”
“Very much so.”
At that moment, I remembered that a few months before I’d graduated from the Conservatory, my Piano Teacher stopped me after one of our lessons. I had played for them a section of the second movement of the Rach 3rd, the Intermezzo. It was the slow movement. After I was finished, I braced myself for my Piano Teacher’s criticism. They had a way of criticizing—“bludgeoning,” was the word that they used. They were proud of it too. But, in fact, they didn’t “bludgeon” me as I had expected. Instead, they were momentarily silent, lost in thought. Dare I say, they looked “bludgeoned” themselves. Or was it age? In fact, the last notes that I had played on the piano still seemed to linger in the air, as if refusing surrender. Outside, I could see that one of my classmates had been peeking in, listening curiously all along to the lesson, and right then and there I knew that I had done something more significant than I could even comprehend at that very moment. And then, after what felt like its own eternity, my Piano Teacher said to me, “It’s good. Really good.” Then after a breath, “But it’s too good.” And I learned that there was a problem in being too good, like what was supposed to be music would all too easily tread into the territory of cacophony, if I wasn’t careful. If I was too much. Too soon. Too able to eclipse an already dying star.
They then told me what they wanted to tell me—that ultimate lesson of my life: that not every pianist who graduated from the Conservatory could go on to become great pianists. “One only notices the brightest of stars, and from them we make constellations of meaning. But don’t you see? None of it’s real. None of it exists. Only an illusion, and for an ephemeral amount of time, at that. And still, most of us spend the rest of our lives chasing after this initial mirage. In the end, it is like chasing after the fountain of youth—and you learn soon enough that you can’t catch up to things like that. No, you can’t.” There was something wistful in their eyes as they said this. Then there was the reality of other things to consider too: “Many of us go on to teach. Some of us even go on to be the heads of conservatories, especially now since there are many more conservatories than ever before. Others go on to accompany singers and violinists. More still, many of us quit playing music entirely, which is fine. And do you know why? Because we are all, first and foremost, listeners—and that alone in itself is a gift, perhaps even the greatest of gifts.” My Piano Teacher leaned in to make sure that I had heard the finality of what they were telling me: “And it should be enough for you.”
It felt like a curse that they were trying to place upon me. Or was it an omen? I felt my muscles begin to tense. My mind, becoming tainted. And though I did all that I could do to resist it, I couldn’t. I was trying to hold on, to not let go. I sat there in the silence of the music room, too powerless to contradict my superior, because somewhere, deep within, I still harbored a hope that things would take a turn in another, more fruitful direction. Though it didn’t.
What I didn’t understand at the time was that it wasn’t true: that my Piano Teacher couldn’t have any Record Producer that they wanted, and that they couldn’t be nominated for all the Grammys and American Music Awards and other awards of the like, because in short, they weren’t considered, even though they certainly wanted it to happen for them—despite the institutional prestige, despite the platform of the Conservatory, despite the network of nepotism. But I saw that in the end, the institution was against them as well, teaching them its own lesson: there were no shortcuts over the mountain of longing. And the audience that they kept tapping into was only an audience of future pianists—which wasn’t actually an audience at all, only a symbiotic experience until it was no longer symbiotic, whereupon each party would go on to seek out another relationship to massage. Therefore, the possibility of those days were over now, and all that was left for my Piano Teacher was a kind of foreplay of those earlier days of potential, when they themself were the student. And yet, like a contradiction, my Piano Teacher still wanted it all and them all—every listener, every ear, the kind of listener who almost didn’t exist anymore, who gave the performer the benefit of the doubt, as opposed to caving to a reflex of criticism, those who were scarcely able to do it themselves—perform. But exercising their power of opinion, instead, which was another kind of performance. An opinion that was amplified by social media and popularity, and not to mention, fervor, giving off the appearance of fact.
“Oh my, look at the time,” the Record Producer then said. “Isn’t your masterclass about to begin?”
“Oh, yes. I believe that it is.” My Piano Teacher downed the last of their coffee. “Don’t worry, I’ve been around the block more than once.”
“I bet. Well, I’m looking forward to hearing you play.”
“I’m glad of it. Because I’m definitely a player.”
Of course, the Record Producer had heard all that they needed to hear—music or not. And they didn’t ask me about recording that album again. Nor did they ask me about teaching their children the piano, or anything else. The main event at the festival was about to begin—the Masterclass, which would be given by my Piano Teacher. Later that evening, my Piano Teacher would say something to the effect, “Not all people who graduate from the Conservatory are meant to perform.” I wish I could say that it was the last time that I saw my Piano Teacher, as we all went our respective ways after the Music Festival in New England. But rarely is my dignity as strong as I desire it to be. Afterwards, I admit that I was heartbroken, in a way that could not be rectified. And then one day, the recitals dwindled for me. One day, something in me dried up and recoiled. Everything else, buried by a kind of ash.
Only I sometimes email my Piano Teacher. I do so from time to time. I don’t know why. The remnants of Stockholm Syndrome, perhaps. It is like the last strip of land that I have yet to go down. Now that I am no longer a problem, my Piano Teacher will say that they miss me. Who else is there to water the flowers? Who else is there to alphabetize the scores in my office? Speaking of which, my children say hello, though they’ve recently quit the piano in favor of the cello, but thank you for all your help, anyway. 😘 😘
My Piano Teacher never asks if I am still working on the Rachmaninoff 3rd—or if I am still playing the piano, for that matter. Because I had heard that you quit. I don’t read the rest. There is music in silence.
Then one day, it is my Piano Teacher who emails me to say that their new recording is finished—the Rach 4th in G minor, Op. 40 (with a second tier orchestra) and that it will come out soon and how they wish that there is a review in The Times, though there isn’t, which can only be an early indication of how the recording is going to be received by a fading listening audience with misconstrued opinions. Or rather, how it is going to be ignored. And that my Piano Teacher had searched me up on Google (perhaps in an effort to placate their insecurities), and had half-expected to find a recording for myself, if even one that I might have uploaded on YouTube, but there isn’t. I learn that my piano teacher is right, as they had been trying to teach me the lesson of all lessons all along, the lesson that I had fought so hard not to learn. But they had come across an article that I had written about—The Masterclass: Why I Quit Playing the Piano? (The short answer is you lose the joy). And then they finally ask me what they want to ask, “Were you talking about me? Am I the reason?”
This is a fantasy at this point. And I even go so far as to imagine that I will not meander or hesitate to write back to my Piano Teacher, just like the many times when my Piano Teacher will not reply to me. Or how they might ghost me, though at the same time, haunt me in every other aspect when I think back to those days when I had played the piano with such a fullness in my heart, as if at any moment, it were about to burst. I imagine that I would have the courage to say yes. I imagine that I would say, “Yes, it was you, it was always, of course, you.” I imagine that I would be a problem once more.
William Pei Shih’s stories have been published or are forthcoming in The Best American Short Stories, The Georgia Review, Ursa Short Fiction, VQR, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Joyland, The Southern Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Boston Review, Crazyhorse, F(r)iction, Catapult, The Asian American Literary Review, The Des Moines Register, The Masters Review, Reed Magazine, Carve Magazine, Hyphen, and elsewhere. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he was a recipient of the Dean’s Graduate Fellowship. He currently lives in New York City, and teaches at NYU.
13 September 2024
Leave a Reply