Keller As a Teacher

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Peter Goldsworthy’s novel ‘Maestro’ centres around the relationship between the adolescent narrator Paul and his eighty year old piano teacher former Maestro Eduard Keller. While Keller is often highly critical of Paul and rarely praises him he succeeds in teaching Paul ‘as much as he is able to learn’. Furthermore as the affection for each other grows the maestro also teaches Paul invaluable life lessons. Paul does not achieve his dream of becoming a concert pianist which could in part be caused by Keller’s insistence of being ‘technically flawless’ but is also due to Paul’s lack of ‘rubato’. He is ‘one in a thousand’ with regards to being a pianist not ‘one in a million’. It would be understandable for Paul to feel as if Keller was ‘bad for him, the worst possible teacher’, judging from the way he later narrates his experiences. Keller is highly cynical and dampens Paul’s enthusiasm by mocking him constantly- ‘you are spoilt, first you must learn to listen’. Not used to being critisised and having very disciplined lessons, Paul initially refers to Keller as a ‘Nazi’, failing to understand the word for what it really meant. Paul is frustrated by Keller’s methods; he patronises Paul by making him play pieces that are not challenging enough, such as The Children’s Bach. In this sense he holds Paul back, restricting him from making any improvement. Keller has drinking and has obvious emotional issues that make him erratic; this gets to the stage where he is forced to call off a lesson because he is too drunk. His view of the world is so negative and pessimistic which is not good for a young man such as Paul. He dismisses Vienna and claims that it ‘hides the hypocrisy within…’ Keller sees only imperfection in everything and therefore will never be happy with his own performance, let alone Paul’s. However, Keller’s overly strict teaching style was not
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