TO 

BE 

A 

PUPIL 

in my fortieth when I 
the 78 to the two- 
.wide-ve- randahed house at the top of Abel Smith Street. I made the mis- take, never repeated, of knocking at the front door. A piano was be- ing played inside the house and a raised voice, with an accent that almost turned a 'th' sound into a 'dh', said 'Not that way - Like this.' There fol- lowed a rush of sound that lifted the spirit. Then quick steps and the rasp of bolts being drawn and there she was, Diny Schramm, described to me by one and all as the best teacher of the pia'lle-~ in Wellington. 
This was my first encounter with a de- gree of disapproval that was to change only in pitch over the years that I knew her. I had come to the wrong door. I had inter- 
' rupted a lesson. I had not made an aP" : 
pointment. But my delight in the great fold of flowering clematis that hung over the verandah rail and the spread of the Brooklyn hills and the city sprawl below,. not yet obscured by new building, won me a space to explain my presence. I wanted 'to learn to play the piano, from the very be~inning. 'Oh, but you are too old, I teach beginners only when they are very young, and then only if they show aptitude.' We discussed the problem of the forty-year-old brain at some length, its inability to absorb 

all the requirements of a good technique, par- ticularly to make the quick response neces- sary to translate sighted notes into ac- tion of hand and foot governed by musical interpretation. She was quite right of course, the obstacles were very great, but I persisted and after se- vere probing into many aspects of my life style, constant at- tendance at orchestra and chamber music concerts winning a 
nod of approval, I got partial acceptance. If I would go as a pupil for a year to one of her senior pupils she, Diny Schramm, would see what she could do. 
So it w~s that I went for a year, each week for an hour, to John Cegledy at his parents' home in Brooklyn. So it was that when I next presented myself at Abel Smith Street, this time through the gate in the ;six-foot garden wall behind the Te Aro 
school, under the crab-apple tree and across the lawn, I could play some scales, move each finger independently, apply, in slow motion, two pressures to a piano key, give a recognisable version of a Chopin prelude. 
The ten years that followed, so far as my involvement with the piano was con- cerned, were full of incident. Diny Schramm was musical to the very marrow of her Dutch bones. As a teacher she had one aim: flawless performance. To achieve that it was necessary to master a technique 

~ Diny ScTiramm, 1938 

11 

that had become second nature, to know something of the composer, to understand what the work was trying to express, to convey all of this in a way that drew atten- tion only to the music. So lessons were wide-ranging in their scope and an alert student could pickup much more than the straightforward material of the lesson. 
The studio was approached through a sunporch where a handwritten notice ad- vised all students to wash their hands in the adjacent laundry and to remove shoes if they had spike heels. Through a kitchen with green-painted woodwork to a hall fur- nished with an eight foot baroque mirror and on the walls many fine delft plates, to the studio itself. Here, on a very large, many-bordered Persian rug of faded reds, were two Bechstein grand pianos, side by side, keyboards in the centre of the room. Artefacts in profusion were displayed on the ricWy patterned covers for the pianos of which the lids were opened but not raised. A Louis IV copper wash-bowl with ewer had pride of place on one piano, a tier of lacquered boxes on the other. At one end of the room a screened fireplace, its mantel- shelf holding ancient church pewter candle- sticks of great size flanking an ormolu-cased clock. Above was an Indonesian carved 
12 ~ 4-handed piano. Publicity photograph 

hardwood panel, depicting fruit and leaves. At the other end, in front of casement win- dows, stood a large sofa covered in faded red velvet, soon to have its blemishes con- cealed by an old rug of Baluchi origin. On the wall opposite the pianos a two-metre- high bookcase with open shelves and more carved panels held neatly stacked piles of sheet music, bound and unbound. Between the bookcase and the pianos a round cloth - covered table held notebooks, appointment diary and some books, with alongside a small, upholstered chair. By the fireplace a couple of chairs, one of obvious antiquity and use-defying fragility. A high-backed chair with adjustable seat stood in front of each piano. In one corner beyond the sofa was a profusion of pot plants, some on the lid of the piano. Curtains were permanently drawn over windows behind the pianos. 
The normal procedure was for the pu- pil to sit at the right-hand piano. Diny Schramm sat either at the left-hand piano or by the round table,. often moving be- tween the two. Often the next pupil sat on the sofa, with the twin objectives of learn- ing something from the lesson in progress and of providing an audience for the pupil -good for the nerves! I was spared this intruding presence on the grounds that as 
for the duo '$ tour of New Zealand in 1939 

an adult at an elementary stage it might be kinder for all concerned to proceed with- out youthful observer: a concession for which I was very grateful. Lessons, at what- ever level. followed a standard pattern. First scales and exercises and then whatever work was being practised. Scales were played first one octave, then extra octave by extra octave with the final five octaves being played at the same speed as one oc- tave. Great care was taken over tone con- trol. each note to be played from a relaxed hand by fingers raised high and acting in - dependently. Special exercises were devised for fourth fingers. The brilliance of wrist staccato was contrasted with the tender- ness of finger staccato. Trilling must be pos- sible with any two fingers, and a quite ex- citing tonal variation was demonstrated. 
For the work 'that was being studied Diny Schramm was much more insistent that her pupil should interpret the com- poser's intention than that he or she should follow her. To this end, in working out the fingering for a difficult passage, she would aim for what suited each pupil's hand rather than to impose a single method. Seated at her own keyboard she would either dem- onstrate how a particular passage could be played, for me always an exhilarating ex~ perience at an unobtainable level. or she would play, at the pupil's tempo, so that the pupil would be carried through that particular difficulty. This might be repeated until the difficulty did not exist. 
There was much else besides the piece that one was learning. There was discus- sion of the composer, with the insights and gossip that could have come only through a European connection at the highest level. But Diny Schramm had also been a leading accompanist and she was able to tell you much about this -accompanying the voice or an instrument. There was a whole range 

of other topics for discussion: ensemble play- ing, orchestral playing, deportment at a re- cital and even the best positioning of a piano for a recital. A pupil received a rich, well-rounded musical education. 
Of course, there were problems. Diny Schramm was an expatriate European whose own musical education had climaxed with a debut at the Concertgebouw in Am- sterdam. A brilliant career as soloist and duo pianist had followed, with concerts in the major European capitals. New Zealand was small, isolated and culturally just be- ginning to burgeon from its colonial past. The Second World War had created, espe- dally for Paul, unforseen problems: they were regarded as aliens. Diny, who never relaxed her standards, believed that as a teacher (through necessity) she must aban- don public performance. As one of the for- tunate few who often heard her play, for she was a frequent visitor, I believe that that decision was wrong and that she would have had a greater degree of fulfilment had she continued to play for the public. But Paul had difficulty in obtaining New Zea- land citizenship -he never got it -and went off to Australia to try there. All of these difficulties had turned this very fine pianist, this outstanding teacher, into a bit- ter, disappointed woman. A pupil was lucky not to get an increasing proportion of les- son time taken up with a recital of what had become significant grievances. 
This pupil found it all very worthwhile. I will never be a competent performer -it was too late -but I learned enough to enjoy playing for myself and much over a wide field that otherwise would have remained unknown. As for so many others my life was greatly enriched by being a pupil of Diny Schramm and an enduring friendship was forged which I am proud to acknowledge. 
Ian Wards 

3