If you love music.. A story you'll love.

Listen in RealAudio
http://media.cbc.ca:8080/ramgen/cbc.ca/thesundayedition/media/ beethov... 1005.rm

If you do love music, I strongly recommend this documentary..

Beethoven's Bust: A Documentary by David Gutnick

Over the past 50 years, Daniel Mergler gently taught hundreds and hundreds of Montreal children how to play the piano. Day in and day out, decade after decade after decade, one by one, kids trooped into his bachelor basement apartment. They wove their way around the piles of books and sheet music, sat down at the keyboard and gamely worked through their finger-stretching exercises. A plaster bust of Beethoven on top of the piano surveyed the proceedings. Some students stayed for years. Others found out that if they weren't ready to practice then it was obvious they'd be better off doing something else. Mr Mergler took his music seriously.

But last April his teaching came to an end. His colon cancer had spread. He moved into the palliative care ward at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital.

A year earlier he'd had a chance meeting in a Montreal park with a 9 year-old Chinese immigrant girl. Xin Ben became his student. Their relationship changed their lives.

This documentary Beethoven's Bust was produced by CBC Montreal's David

The previous link I sent may not work so Try this..
http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/features/ beethoven.html

and then CLICK on the 'LISTEN IN REALAUDIO' link

Sorry about the confusion

This is a lovely story. Especially for me, a piano teacher since 1969. Thanks, Mark. David McKay

Well, I'm a jazz piano teacher as well and I certainly can relate. I really think that The CBC is just the greatest and that more people should check it out.

(FROM a U.S. Citizen living in Toronto)

Well Mark, I'm a 52 year old man who hasn't had such a good cry in a long time. This was one of the most inspiring, touching stories I've heard. It broke my heart yet I thought how blessed this man was... that Daniel Mergler had a lifetime of passing on knowledge to others. What can be a better?

Your posting of this story was timely for me in that I've been spending a lot of time this week thinking how lucky I'm am in that I can make a living doing something that feels so rewarding...... teaching piano. I had played professionally for many many years. Left the business disheartened for various reasons and found myself teaching first out of what I thought was necessity, but what turned out to be what I love most.

I thank you for your considerate & caring post. I believe this post/story contains a message to musicians that while creating & playing music is a wonderful thing, you can create much more music in life by teaching others how to play & create. A piece of you is now in all of your students and the music they play & create to be heard by many many people.

Mark, you.... are a wise teacher All the best......

It was indeed quite touching; an old piano teacher meeting his highest-potentiality student. A lovely young girl full of hope and delight. And he's appreciated fully for what he's always done.

We should all be so lucky at any time between now and the grave.

I can't help but think about a few teachers I had in life that were bitter, angry vitriolic people who were teachers only because they couldn't or wouldn't do something else. I wonder how many students weren't like me