Mrs. Rostad

 

                                                                           Mrs. Rostad

My second piano teacher was another of those individuals that touched my life briefly but left a permanent impression. About a year after my initial piano lesson, I switched teachers because my technique was barely improving despite my spending hours at the piano. The new teacher, Mrs. Rostad, had a degree from Peabody Conservatory, she had recently moved to our city, and she taught classical music. She was a middle-aged lady of strong Scandinavian stock – not at all physically attractive, but a very nice lady despite her strict insistence that I follow her instructions faithfully.

She soon had me slaving away at scales, Hanon finger exercises, and Bach two-part inventions. My technique began to improve rapidly, and my repertoire gradually expanded to include many of the original Chopin works, as well as some Beethoven works. Perhaps “repertoire” is a euphemism, because I never attained the level of technique that would qualify me as a performer; but at times I seemed to impress a listener, and I found great personal satisfaction in the hobby.

Unfortunately, Miss Rostad, moved away in less than a year, and I never took another lesson. But she had taught me how to practice and the kind of technique that I should strive for. She was one of several people that I drew much from, that I remember fondly, with the fervent wish that I could somehow thank them – now that the appropriate time is long past. I didn’t lose my interest in the piano, nor my motivation to practice, but my technique improved much more slowly than it would have with the benefit of professional guidance. However, a kind of bond had formed between me and that inanimate object – a bond that strengthened over the years.

My appreciation for good piano music quickly expanded to orchestral music. I began to listen to the Sunday afternoon radio broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic orchestra, and to save up my weekly allowance in order to purchase recordings of classical music. For inspiration I turned to recordings. There was no television, but every home had a radio and a record player. The records were expensive heavy 78 rpm discs. A complete concerto or symphony usually consisted of three or four records packaged in an album. I saved my allowance for about three weeks to buy my first album: Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto. But when I first listened to the entire work, I felt that I had wasted my money. Parts of it were beautifully melodic, but other parts sounded more like organized noise, that annoyingly distracted from the song-like sections. Over the next few weeks, I played my recording over and over - not as background music - but listening, listening, listening, and finally learning to understand and appreciate what I had at first detested.

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