Mozart Trauma
I often joke with friends that I gave up the piano at age 13 due to Mozart Trauma. There were other factors, but this was actually the big one.
I started playing at 10, and I can’t remember exactly why, except that my mother (who’d once been quite a good pianist) seemed to think I needed lessons. She found me a teacher who was regarded as the best in the area, and who had some highly accomplished students who went on to become professional pianists. But the pressure that he and my mother put on me to practice was very intense, and I hated that. I did enjoy playing Bach Two Part Inventions, when I got to that stage, but soon after that my teacher started me on Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19 in F, K. 459:
I absolutely hated this piece. The Alberti bass drove me crazy, and in general the music seemed so much less interesting than the Bach had been. Eventually, the pressure to learn music that I hated, coupled with the fact that I was entering my teen years and was listening to (and loving) contemporary rock bands like The Doors and the Beatles, led to my quitting lessons abruptly. Both my teacher and my mother were appalled and disappointed by my decision.
(Listening to the recording above, it seems to me that I must not have gotten too far into learning this concerto. The first couple of themes sound painfully familiar, but everything after that sounds unfamiliar. Even now, more than fifty years later, I still don’t like this concerto, and still don’t like Mozart’s piano music in general – though I admit that some of his chamber music, such as the Clarinet Quintet, is quite lovely and much more interesting than his piano music.)
The shame I subsequently felt from quitting the piano lasted decades. It took me twenty years to overcome my fear of the piano and lessons, and return to the instrument I had once loved. When I finally returned to piano, I was much older and had learned to love piano music again – but not the music I had heard or played as a child. Incredibly, when I was a young student, I don’t think I ever heard the piano music of composers I adore now: Brahms, Chopin, Schubert, Debussy, Ravel, and many others. Perhaps my teacher didn’t think I was ready for these composers; perhaps he was right, and that I needed more maturity.
The point of this tedious story is that I believe it’s important for amateur musicians to play only the music that they love deeply. Otherwise, there’s a danger of becoming bored, uncaring, or even antagonistic towards the music. At least, that’s true for me: as an adult, I’ve tried to play music that I didn’t love deeply, and I was not successful and had to quit early. Unlike a professional pianist, I am unable to embrace the entirety of the classical piano world, and I don’t have the drive or talent to overcome my resistance to music from the so-called “classical” period that includes Mozart. I realize that sounds heretical, but I can only speak for myself. Other pianists, like the great Brahms interpreter Radu Lupu, play Mozart beautifully, and I’m grateful for that.
The story about my scary piano teacher has a happy ending, though. Over forty years after I quit taking lessons as a child, I returned to my childhood teacher and had three fun and enjoyable lessons with him. We joked about my Mozart Trauma, and then got busy exploring the music of Brahms in detail. After I played some Debussy for my teacher, he said that he’d always thought I was one of his better students, which surprised me greatly. I’d heard some of his really good students in recitals, and even as a child I could recognize their superior skills and talent.
That recognition of my own limits doesn’t bother me so much now. Since the scamdemic destroyed the social part of my musical life, I now play for myself and nobody else, and by necessity that has to be sufficient for me to keep going.