Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - Amy Chua [40]
Sophia and I were in Professor Wei-Yi Yang’s piano studio at the Yale School of Music. It was a large rectangular room with two black Steinway baby grand pianos standing side by side, one for the teacher, one for the student. I was staring at “Juliet as a Young Girl” from Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, which Wei-Yi had just proposed that Sophia play for an international piano competition that was coming up.
When Wei-Yi and I first met, he explained that he’d never had a student as young as Sophia, who was barely fourteen. He taught only Yale piano graduate students and a few Yale undergraduates of unusual caliber. But having heard Sophia play, he was willing to take her on with one condition: that she didn’t require any special treatment because of her age. I assured him that this would be no problem.
I love being able to count on Sophia. She has wells of inner strength. Even more than me, she can take anything: exclusion, excoriation, humiliation, loneliness.
Thus began Sophia’s baptism of fire. Like Mrs. Vamos, Wei-Yi had expectations that were of an order galactically beyond what we’d been used to. The stack of music he handed Sophia at her first lesson—six Bach inventions, a book of Moszkowski études, a Beethoven sonata, a toccata by Khachaturian, and Brahms’s Rhapsody in G Minor—stunned even me. Sophia had some catching up to do, he explained; her technical foundation was not what it should be, and there were some gaping holes in her repertoire. Even more intimidating was when he said to Sophia, “And don’t waste my time with wrong notes. At your level, there’s no excuse. It’s your job to get the notes right, so we can work on other things during the lesson.”
But two months later, when Wei-Yi Yang proposed the pieces from the suite Romeo and Juliet, I had the opposite reaction. The Prokofiev didn’t look demanding all—it didn’t strike me as a competition winner. And why Prokofiev? The only thing I knew about Prokofiev was Peter and the Wolf. Why not something hard, like Rachmaninov?
“Oh, this piece,” I said aloud. “Sophia’s old piano teacher thought it was too easy for her.” This wasn’t entirely true. Actually, it wasn’t even a little true. But I didn’t want Wei-Yi to think I was challenging his judgment.
“Easy?” Wei-Yi boomed contemptuously. He had a deep baritone voice, which was strangely inconsonant with his slight, boyish frame. He was in his thirties, of mixed Chinese and Japanese descent, but raised in London and Russian-taught. “Prokofiev’s piano concertos hold up the sky. And there is nothing—not one note—that is easy about this piece. I challenge anyone to play it well.”
I liked this. I like authority figures. I like experts. This is the opposite of Jed, who hates authority and believes that most “experts” are charlatans. More important, the Prokofiev wasn’t easy! Hurray! Professor Wei-Yi Yang, an expert, said so.
My heart skipped a beat. The first-prize winners for this competition would perform as soloists at Carnegie Hall. Until now Sophia had competed only in local competitions. I had gone crazy when Sophia played as a soloist with the Farmington Valley (all volunteer) Symphony. To jump from there to an international competition was daunting enough, but a chance at Carnegie Hall—I could hardly stand to think about it.
Over the next few months, Sophia and I learned what it was like to take piano lessons from a master. Watching Professor Yang teach Sophia “Juliet as a Young Girl” was one of the most amazing and humbling experiences I’ve ever had. As he helped Sophia bring the piece to life, adding layer upon layer of nuance, all I could think was, This man is a genius. I am a barbarian. Prokofiev is a genius. I am a cretin. Wei-Yi and Prokofiev are great. I am a cannibal.
Going to lessons with Wei-Yi became my favorite thing; I looked forward to it all week. At every session I would religiously take notes, the scales falling from my eyes. Occasionally,