Learning Schumann’s “Träumerai”

by Juliane McAdam

Image credit: Josh Hild on Unsplash

Beginning piano lessons at age 65, I told my teacher Rebecca

of my dream to play Schumann’s “Träumerai,”

how it had lodged in my eight-year-old heart.

After a year of lessons, she gave me the music.

I learned “Träumerai” in small sections, measure by measure,

practicing passages over and over, from

sheet music dense on the page, difficult.

Months later, I could play the whole piece, had

memorized it. In my study notes, I wrote:

“Played ‘Träumerai’ all the way through, no music, no flubs!”

Then Rebecca lay dying—recurrent cancer—in hospice care. I was told

I could visit, that she tired easily, that she loved gifts of music.

At her house, I found her weak but awake, lying in bed.

I sat at her piano to play “Träumerai,” but halfway through

I stumbled, struggled, stopped.

I sat with her, then after a few minutes

decided to try again. This time I

played through, no missed notes.

I returned to her side. She looked at me,

smiled, and said, “You’re vindicated.”

It was the last thing she would say to me.

***

Juliane McAdam

Juliane McAdam is a California native who grew up in the stark beauty of the Mojave Desert. She spent the last 27 years of a 40-year teaching career teaching English and Spanish to middle school students in Los Angeles, writing poems with them. Now retired and living near Morro Bay on California’s beautiful Central Coast, she enjoys walks, playing piano, and writing poems to record observations and memories.