Piano Lessons

Once, in an expansive mood of vaulting arrogance, I remarked during a dinner party that I don't bother reading books written after 1970. They're all crap, I said dismissively, and there are already enough disappointments in life. Besides, I was a pedant, and once begun a book, needed to read through to the end. No matter how bad. Only, with rubbish books, I'd skim, impatiently turning the pages, picking up a stray sentence here and there with my eyes, stringing together the plot in my head, keeping a finger tabbed on the last page and feeling with my hand the volume of words I had to go before I could put the book down, onto my Finished Pile.

Reading as I would eat a rushed meal. Gobbling, barely digesting. Not for taste, but for the sake of accomplishing the task.

Recently however, I've been influenced by friends who do venture into the 20th Century and beyond, to read into the present. Mostly, I've forgotten what I've read, but a few books have been gems.

Yesterday I used up my Borders voucher to buy Anna Goldsworthy's memoir, "Piano Lessons". I began reading in the bookshop, and my eyes barely left the page as I clambered on a tram home. I stayed up until 2am, when finally the book slipped out of my fingers as my head lurched forward in fatigue. This afternoon, in between coffee and conversations with my housemates, I finished it.

There are two photos of Anna Goldsworthy in the book. The first is on the front cover - a faded image in 70s russets of a small, chubby child in a hand-knitted jumper, smiling into the camera. Chin upturned, mousy brown hair dumped like a bowl on a moon face, hand awkwardly holding on a large, rectangular suitcase, body leading slighly off balance on the stoep of a suburban house. The smile takes you by surprise - no teeth, but how a closed, upturned mouth could exude such cheeky exuberance, such expression that draws you into a great cosmic joke.

I turn to the back cover for the other picture. A more recent and familiar image of Anna Goldsworthy - the dark curtain of hair, the palest of porcelain skin, a long white neck, deep blue eyes, a small and perfect red-ribbon smile. I'd seen this tall elegant woman on advertisement broschures for the Seraphim Trio, a statuesque presence at the piano. Later I glimpsed the same calm, reserved woman in the Ormond College SCR. A more human presence then, flanked by her Italian husband. Her children clambered onto the worn leather couches, and played havoc with the cushions. Her husband pulled one boy towards him, and quietly told the other to behave. The children switched effortlessly between English and Italian, while speaking to the parents.

Anna Goldsworthy's memoir spans the period between these two photos, recounting the path to becoming a concert pianist. The continuous thread is found in piano lessons, and indeed lessons in music and life, from her Russian piano teacher, Mrs Sivan. In between are conversations with an incredibly supportive family, a swathe of academic and musical awards, the awkwardness of growing up and entering high school. Mostly tho', there are the lessons learnt at the piano - phrases of illumination and wisdom that translates just as well into life as onto the musical stage. Lessons in how to live for a passion, to carry a legacy, to know that one belongs in a long line of musicians, men and women who grappled with beauty, with being human, with expression, and communication and oppression. With wanting to touch the face of God. We get to know the composers through their music.

Above all is the relationship between teacher and student. Mrs Sivan's extraordinary pedagogy - a genius teacher - conveyed to the reader through meticulously remembered phrases. The broken English only enhancing the richness of her emotional range, her joy in music, her drive in carrying that, instilling that into her young charge. What is intuition, she'd say, it's tuition, that is IN the student.

The writing is elegant and lyrical. Anna is after all, the daughter of Peter Goldsworthy, whose novel "Maestro" upturned my life one summer in my final year of High School. Cool heart, warm brain, Mrs Sivan had taught Anna about the art of pianistic interpretation, and it seemed to have carried over into her writing, which is clear without being mechanical, compact and economical, but rich in poetry, intense but not bleeding with passion.

A wonderful, self-deprecating, enlivening read, whether fans of memoirs, music or pedagogy.