Years ago, a friend told us a true story about a young woman (I’ll call her Ann) who student-taught music in a tiny, rural school in northeast Missouri. Ann wanted to expose the children to classical music, so one day she passed out a list of the great composers to a high school class and asked students to check the ones whose names they recognized.
After graduating, I moved on to a demanding college piano professor, an Austrian-born perfectionist who played professionally with a symphony and A string trio. She had little sympathy for my sloppy training. Ms. Suppan demanded that I work on pieces until they met her high standards. This new music was then added to my ongoing repertoire, which she expected me to be able to play up to snuff whenever she asked for it.
