On Raising a Prodigy

My father tried it. In Daruvar, Croatia, he bought a piano and sat my oldest brother at it, and hired a teacher. Whenever Vlado made a mistake, the teacher caned his fingers. After a few such lessons, Vlado skipped one; the teacher complained and wanted his money. Vlado said he was beaten; the teacher denied it. Father believed the teacher, and beat Vlado for maligning such a gentleman. After that, Vlado made sure not to play the piano again. Father attempted to persuade him a few times with the belt and a stick, which only confirmed his impression of the piano as the black instrument of torture. 

            There was no reason to think that I would fare any differently from my father when I sat my son at the piano in Cincinnati, Ohio. Actually, because I enjoyed classical music, Joseph had been exposed to it, in a muffled way, in the womb, in Fargo, North Dakota: Mozart, Beethoven, and Stravinsky. He could have heard the base and the timpani, maybe some deeper cello tones, but I doubt that any of the violin thin strings stirred his placenta. After his umbilical cord was cut, his chin trembled from the traumatic birth (which lasted for two days), and he cried. I carried him into the room, while his mom was knocked out after the C-section, and the radio emitted a Mozart string quartet, with low and perfectly placed vibrations from the cello. He immediately grew quiet and relaxed. Maybe that vibration made him feel at home, like he wasn't completely thrown out into the stingingly bright and cold world. We considered his response a sign from heavens, and nearly named him Wolfgang. I decided against it since a German name would clash with the Slavic surname. He was named Joseph, not after Haydn, or me, but after his grandfather, and the few generations of forefathers, all Josephs (rather, Josips, but as I would register him as an American, I anglicized the name). Anyway, his music-loving grandfather would be proud of him. We got a piano at an auction for 300 bucks, and I dragged it to our apartment. I did it in the middle of a comprehensive heart test, with needles still stuck in my veins, for the next drawing of blood. When I bent my elbows, I could see and feel the needle bending. When I got back to the clinic, the cardiologist said the test was perfect, except the heart rate was a bit elevated. I described what I did, and he said, Oh, in that case it's fine. Maybe we should patent piano carrying with needles in your arms as the cardiologic stress test?

Joseph loved rummaging on the keys with his quick fingers, and pretty soon he could poke out all sorts of tunes, when he was five. We failed to find a good piano teacher in Cincinnatithere was a French one down the block but a friend wouldn't give her name out. But, at the downtown elementary school in Cinci, which was 90% black, our son got his start on the cello. Mrs. Sherzer--no joke, that was her name--taught him a lesson a week, although the lessons started late in November, when Joseph was almost seven. Before entering the school, Joseph was proud of his speedhe could run fastbut after running on the playground with the inner city boys, he lost that conceit, which freed him up for music.

            We rented a tiny cello, one quarter-size, from Mr. Lutovski, on the West Side, on a hill. Cincinnati, like Rome, they said, was built on seven hills. Well, like Rome, it was hot and polluted in the summer. Mrs. Sherzer taught the Suzuki method, and immediately, Joseph was catching on very quickly. The piano was still his stronger instrument, and we thought he could do both.

            When we moved to Tennessee for six months, Jeanette, my wife, was so brainwashed by the Suzuki cult, that she wouldn't have lessons from a classical cellist, who lived next door to us, and who played cello sonatas at a reception for the president of the college. She wanted Joseph to work from the notes, and Jeanette thought that working like that was a sacrilege to his ear and memory, and so she drove once a week for two hours each way north of Nashville to get lessons from a certified Suzuki cello teacher. By the time Joseph got that far north, he was asleep and tired, and so for half a year the lessons were worthless.

            We went together to see Emanuel Ax play Mozart's Piano Concerto #21. Since my office was right next to the music hall, I was asked to let Mr. Ax use it for a day, and so we met him right outside my office door. Joseph was extremely shy at that time, and he hid behind me as Mr. Ax, who was all sweaty from a vigorous exercise, talked to him. Mr. Ax approved of the Suzuki method up to the age of nine, but after that, he thought there were better methods. I forgot how he joked with Joseph, but Joseph was terrified.

            The piano lessons on a Boesendorfer in the local chapel weren't useful as Steve, his teacher, fixated on getting everything right; they repeated each phrase about fifty times, until Joseph began to cry out of sheer boredom.

            My teaching him tennis wasn't much more successful. I would insist on the right grip, and the follow through on the swings, so even when he got the balls over the net, I'd have an objection, and he refused to get more lessons. Lessons were clearly no fun. But then, he enrolled in a tennis class for kids, and the teacher was patient and positive, and Joseph grew to love tennis, except not with me. Fathers, I learnt, can't teach their sons much, unless they practice terror and absolute authority.

            At that time we thought of moving to Croatia for two years. I would have to teach in Cincinnati half of each year, and my family could live there full time, and I would commute occasionally when teaching. The reasons for reverse migration were ample-walking culture, good farmer's markets, foreign languages, worsening politics in the States, and finally, music. You could enroll your kid in a music school and get two lessons a week and solfeggio for 120 kunas a month, which, at the time, meant $15 dollars. For that you could buy a third of a lesson in the States. And we'd also have the music culture around us, with concerts. First I took him to the Lisinski school for an audition. Joseph played a simplified Bach partita. He wore a black jacket, and had long blond hair, and looked terribly serious as he played. The teacher positioned him, made him sit symmetrically, and exclaimed, Look how beautiful he is! She loved how he played, but more how he looked, and I was impressed by what a good and pretty teacher she was. I reported the success at home, and we checked it with my friend Veljko, who taught the piano at the Zagreb Conservatory. I never heard of her, he said. There's a guy there, Crnogorski, who is supposed to be a good teacher, but not the tops.

            Who is the tops? Valter Desplalj? I asked.

            Yes, of course, but I don't believe he teaches young children.

            I talked to Despalj on the phone; he was in Zadar doing his Cello Mania conference. Yes, he would listen to our son, but only in November.

            What to do till November?

            We took him to Blagoje Bersa, a good music school and he passed his audition on the piano and on the cello. Now he took lessons from Svoboda, a Czech girl, on the piano, and Ivancica, on the cello. The two had completely different approachesSvobodawhose name means freedom in Czech--encouraged him to play new repertoire every month, so it seemed more like a course in music reading than in technique. She assigned very little homework. Ivancica held him back to basic tunes, below his level, simply because he played a bit messily, not holding the bow the way she thought he should hold it, and in half a year, he grew to resent the cello. Svoboda, however, didn't make the piano his main instrument, as she frequently forgot to show up for the lessons, and never held the lessons beyond the assigned 30 minutes.

Whenever I was in Zagreb, I'd take him to the school, and then sit in the square, Britasnski trg, sipping mineral water, or coffee, or beer, with my friends, or alone, reading the papers, basking in the sun, until he'd be done with the lesson. Now, that didn't seem a bad way to raise a prodigy, drinking Budvar, and retelling the new batch of jokes. Otherwise, my wife would attend to his lessons, and she'd pay extra so Ivancica would come over to our place and teach Joseph at home. The Croatian kids, if they were talented, didn't pay extra, but we were considered American, and Americans have to pay more, that's the world-wide rule (certainly it held true in Russia).

            Then, the first winter, we heard from Ivancica that an amazing teacher from Minsk was coming, Vladimir Perline, to offer a quick seminar. We went to the master lesson. The man, looking a bit like Boris Spasky, had charisma. He'd play my son's little cello perfectly in tune, never missing the pitch. He shouted, grimaced, stuck his tongue out, performed. People said that at home, he held a child out of the window from the tenth floor by his legs, to scare him into playing better. To show the drawbacks of playing stiffly, he grabbed a can of coke and crushed it in his hand. Everything was a metaphor for him; the arms were wings, and they needed to fly gently. It was a scary experience for all the participants in the program to be publicly humiliated and toyed with by this master teacher. Joseph liked the show. Perline came back next summer to Hvar, and we went there to a program organized by Dobrila Berkovic-Magdalenic. At that time, Dobrila, who was famous for being a good teacher for kids, was Joseph's primary music teacher. She had launched Monika Leskovar, with a bit of finishing schooling by Valter Despalj, and later Geringas. We came to Hvar three summers in a row, and Joseph had fine teachers, such as Boyarski from Moscow and London, and then Schoenfeld from L.A., and Laszlo Metzo, member of the Budapest String Quartet, and Nino Ruzevic, the Zagreb symphony principal cellist. The only problem was that each teacher had a different ideology, so what he learned from one teacher was attacked by the next.

            Dobrila was a big boss in the cello world in central Europe. In addition to teaching at one of the best schools during the year, she ran the Hvar program, where many famous cellists came to teach in exchange for accommodation in the island resort, travel, and perhaps an honorarium. Everybody was happy, trying to cool off on the beach, and swimming in the azure waters. I am not sure how much concentration the kids could have with all the shrieking on the beaches, heat strokes, constant noise even at night, and gloomy parents, who were stunned by the prices. There were teachers from Poland, and many other countries with bad climates, and lots of students, all either prodigies or aspiring to be or pretending to be. Anyway, it's a world-wide phenomenon now to have classes in music, writing, sports, self-improvement, in most beautiful locations all over the world, to combine hedonism with discipline and learning; and perhaps more importantly, to get top teachers to teach for sub-standard honoraria. For example, a friend of mine runs a conference in St. Petersburg, and pays his teachers only a thousand dollars per course. I think it would be worthwhile to make a study of where actually good music got composed, and good writing donein many cases, in ugly cities, in small apartments, without a view. I think too much beauty can be intoxicating and distracting. For kids, of course, it's nice to go to a sunny spot. Strangely enough, during communism, nearly all of us could go to the sea resorts, and stay in cottages or tents.

            We moved to the States, but continued to visit Hvar, and also St. Petersburg, Russia, which, of course, is swarming with classical musicians. I saw a guy in the street with a cello on his back; he looked serious and gloomy, like a young Dostoyevsky. I asked him whether he'd teach our son, and for a good fee he would. The problem was that Dmitriy had never taught a child; he was incredibly insistent on a few technical things, such as a steady bowing motion and pitch. It turned out he had a bad temper; he'd stand up and shout occasionally, and I'd have to translate his insults. But he too had some charisma, and taught Joseph a few things.

            Anyhow, Joseph participated in several competitions and won first place awards at Wagner College in New York (in his age group); first at the international competition for young cellists in Porec; second at the international competition in Liezen, Austria (twice); first in the greater Pittsburgh competition. When Itzhak Perlman saw him play on a DVD, he admitted Joseph into the Perlman Music Program, where he was the youngest member for two years; usually there are 100 applications for each spot in the program, and that year, there was no space for cellists, but Mr. Perlman made an exception, when he saw with what flair Joseph played.

            The camp takes place for 6 weeks every summer on Shelter Island; Mr. Perlman's personal chef cooks for the kids. Joseph's chess game and ping pong has improved there, and so has even his cello playing.

            At the moment he attends the Juilliard pre-College program in NYC, which means that I have to drive him there nearly every weekend, and then we stay either at a hotel near the Newark Airport (since we can't afford the NYC hotel rates) or we crash with a few friends of mine or my niece who studies philosophy for the Ph.D. at Columbia. For Joseph it's all right to commute like thathe mostly sleeps in the car, or reads, or watches DVDs, or does his homework, while I am dying of boredom. He hates loud rock, and in general can't take loud music, so he shrieks out at me if I try to keep myself awake by listening to some artistic violence.

            As a winner of the Gorizzia international competition, he got to play in many venues at the age of 9, including the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Since then he has played at a Perlman Gala event at Carnegie Hall, last spring; Spielberg sat there in the front row. Just a couple of days ago, he played in the Juilliard Junior Orchestra at Alice Tulley Hal at the Lincoln Center Brahms' Symphonty #4.

            In his chamber group he is the youngest player.

            The problem for me as a professor, which is to say, a person with a relatively modest income, is to support his prodiginess or should I say prodigality? Maybe prodigy and prodigality are related, and anyhow, they have the same effect: they cost a lot of money. I have been spending about 25,000 a year on the kid. It would be worse if I had to buy him a cello, which eventually I'll have to do; he has won a cello as a free loan for 3-4 years from the Carlson Foundation in Seattle. However, his bow, now for example, is of inferior quality, worth only $800. An excellent bow would be 10,000, and naturally, I am not going to buy it, unless I win some major book contract or a movie deal, which is not likely.

            Now I understand the idea of a sponsor. At Hvar, there used to be a lanky old man with missing teeth, who tortured his daughters, a violinist and a cellist. He'd shout at them, bistro, gromko! He had them play at the public square to raise money, and occasionally he would disappear to Split, and there were ugly rumors of how he employed his daughter there, which I didn't believe, but anyhow, they had occasional meetings with their sponsor in Split, who, for some reason needed to see them frequently. When the old man learned I was form America, he immediately wanted me to be the sponsor of his daughters. I talked to a German cello teacher, who says he hit her up with the same proposal.

            Maybe this enterprise, which has cost me let's say an apartment on the Adriatic, will eventually pay; maybe he will make a living as a cellist and play in a good symphony and a quartet. He is hitting adolescence, so who knows. Last month he fell and broke his arm. Fortunately, he recovered swiftly, but what if he has a harder fracture? At least he has the math to fall back upon. He does math three years ahead of his age group, and gets As. In Britain, where we sent him for two years to study at the (Henry) Purcell School (with the Russian cellist Vladimir Boyarski as his teacher), he won the Gold Certificate in math. I believe math education is cheap. If we were starting it all over again, I would probably immediately stimulate him just to do math and physics. So far math costs me maybe 100 bucks a yearfor example, he persuaded me to buy a thick book of Euclid's geometry.

            Hopefully, his excelling at music will get him into an excellent school with a scholarship, such as Yale, where he could pursue math and cello at the same time (Yale has a superior school for strings), with Aldo Parisot running the program. Parisot had heard Joseph play 3 years ago, and I said, What should he change? Nothing, said Parisot. He's perfect for his age. Let him keep up whatever he's doing, and at the age of 18 he will be a finished musician. (finished, I assume, not as Kaputt, but as educated and ready to be a pro).

            Occasionally I marvel at the difference in upbringing my son and I are having. I began to play the violin at the age of 13, too late to be a prodigy, and I had a violin with a very crooked neck, which made it hard to keep the right order on the strings, each string having a different geometry. My teacher was the former military band conductor from Belgrade, Malek, who met the Lord and joined our Baptist church. Apparently, the Lord was good at keeping Gospodin or Drug Malek away from the bottle, but not from his anger. If I missed a pitch, Malek would turn red in the face, and he'd start lisping and spittle would spark out of his mouth, his lips would turn purple, and he'd slap me on the wrist with his bow. I wasn't surprised to hear, once I left the country, that this master of controlled rage (such as military marches are), died of a massive heart attack. No wonder my education in the violin went nowhere, and as soon as I broke my hand, just like my son did, I took that as a sufficient excuse to quit playing the violin. I was basically pissing in the sand at the age when my son plays Brahms' symphonies and Beethoven's sonatas.

            But I didn't have as much talent as my father did. He could play ten instruments and he ran a tambourine orchestra in Andrijasevci near Vinkovci. For relaxation he played the guitar and sang. Maybe talent, which certainly can't be carried over by dominant but rather recessive genes (otherwise, we'd all be talented) tends to skip a generation, and to recombine itself later. Maybe we are like plants that way; in good and rare ways resembling our grandfathers, and in bad and common ones, our fathers. I inherited my father's sleep disorders without his music talents. I know, this is too simple, but tempting to believe.

            Well, now while my son is at Juilliard in his chamber music program, I am sitting in a coffee shop, and a friend of mine from Russia will join me - so things aren't all that dissimilar from what I'd be doing if I were shepherding my son in the music stalls in Zagreb.  Of course, it could all be a terrible waste of time. I am reminded of an anecdote involving one of the Diogeneses in Ancient Greece. Diogenes heard a young man playing on the lute. The otherwise stoical philosopher seemed to be touched by the emotional music and he fought tears. And then, when the young man played a quick and brilliant sequence of sounds, involving very complex fingering, Diogenes burst into tears. Why are you weeping, Master? At first I thought the man spent months acquiring his skill. Now I realize it's years. I am weeping for his wasted years. The more he plays, the more evidence he supplies about how much time and talent he has wasted.

            Sometimes when my son plays Elgar cello concerto, I am moved, too, and perhaps more by the realization how much time and money in the subtle sliding and dipping sounds have vanished. The cello is indeed the sad instrument.