The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

you enjoy Wilhelm Kempff?”
    “Oh, yes, definitely,” I said. “He’s one of my favorite pianists—I have every single recording of his Beethoven sonatas.”
    “Yes, I understand they’ve put them on those little coaster-shaped things now.”
    “CDs,” I said helpfully.
    “That’s right. I prefer records myself. Now, if you listen carefully, and follow along in a score, you can hear a mistake every now and again. And I’m sure you know that Kempff played into his eighties—with arthritis—and he made more mistakes then. Ones he didn’t make as a younger man. And I’ll tell you, Miss Kippah, I would rather hear Wilhelm Kempff’s mistakes than I would most people’s note-perfect renditions. Because he plays from the soul. And the soul of an artist is far more important than some silly notion of perfection.”
    I knew exactly what he meant. I had just never heard anyone express it so perfectly before.
    “And that brings us back to you. Your Goldberg Variations are very solid. You understand Bach—you can transcend the math and logic of his music and communicate the feeling in it. Have you worked on all thirty of the variations?
    “Yes,” I said. “I mean, mostly. I’ve worked to some extent on all of them. Well, except for Variation 28.”
    “Ah, yes. The iceberg to the Titanic of many a hopeful virtuoso. Why haven’t you tackled Variation 28?”
    I hesitated. Mr. Tate’s eyes gleamed as he sat back in his chair, folded his hands neatly over his stomach, and waited for my response.
    “I guess I think . . . I don’t know. I guess I just think it’s for a more advanced student.”
    “And you’re not an advanced student?” he asked.
    “I . . . well, yes, I am. But I also think it’s okay to know that there are some things that are still out of my reach. Rachmaninoff. Liszt.”
    He gave a little smile.
    “Possibly. Possibly not. But we’re talking about Bach.”
    “I guess I feel like it would be wrong to take it on if I don’t have the capacity to play it as it’s meant to be played. If you listen to Glenn Gould—”
    Mr. Tate sat bolt upright. His hair bounced a few times, then settled.
    “Glenn Gould, Miss Kippah, played almost nothing the way the composer meant it to be played. Glenn Gould was a genius of the highest caliber, and maybe the most important thing to happen to the Goldberg Variations in the twentieth century, but he’s scared many a pianist away from them because of the way he played, crazy fast here, turtle slow there. His renditions of Bach are utterly unique and will never be equaled. Nor should they be. But I am more interested in Moxie Roosevelt Kippah than Glenn Gould.”
    Wow. Miss Nimetz would have lay down and died on her living room rug before ever saying something like that.
    “We’re collaborating, you and I,” Mr. Tate said. “So what we’re going to work on together has to be agreeable to both of us. But here’s what I’d like, Miss Kippah. I’d like to see you tackle Variation 28. And to do that, you have to leave the comfort of those ten pieces you play perfectly and be willing to get messy. Be comfortable with the sound of your own struggle as you try to work it out, even if it sounds like you’re practicing with mittens on. Let it be a work in progress. The only way you’re going to learn how to play it is to learn how not to play it first. The rest, Miss Kippah, is a simple process of elimination.”
    He folded his hands again and sat back, looking at me under slightly raised, huge white eyebrows.
    The piece we were discussing was one I’d been avoiding for two years. I had never seen any reason to try and master something that seemed so clearly out of my reach.
    But suddenly I felt a little loose, a little crazy.
    “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes. Yes, Mr. Tate. I’d like to give it a shot.”
    Mr. Tate beamed.
    “I am not one bit surprised,” he said. “We have our first regular lesson scheduled in”—he checked an