December 15, 2025
Monday

“Well we certainly need more Rachmaninoff recordings these days, more than ever, I suppose. . . . Otherwise Rachmaninoff will run the risk of being forgotten one day, overshadowed by the likes of Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande.”
— from “The Masterclass,” a short story by William Pei Shih, included in The Best American Short Stories 2025. The character who speaks this dialogue is identified only as “my Piano Teacher” by the unnamed first person narrator.

I’ve written in this space about the anxiety attack I had on Thursday, December 11, and my determination to get past it and reboot my life. “2026 starts here,” I wrote in my journal this morning, and to reinforce that, after my period of C&C (Coffee and Contemplation), I turned to an activity all but ignored this whole calendar year. I pulled The Best American Short Stories 2025 out of the pile it was in, and opened it to read some fiction.

Of the 20 authors included in the volume, I actually know 5 of them personally. That’s 25%, quite a chunk of familiarity. I have sat beside them in workshops and classes, nominally peers, but on different planes of talent and achievement. I have sat beside giants.

One of them is William Pei Shih. I met him at Bread Loaf sometime in the last ten years — 2019? 2017? BASS arranges the stories alphabetically according to author. His story, “The Masterclass,” is next to last. (This is not his first appearance in BASS.) Jessica Treadway, another stellar craftsman whom I have met, is last, and it appears that I at least worked out the word count in her story, although I have no recollection of actually reading it, such has been the sieve-like quality of my memory this past year.

The first paragraph of “The Masterclass” took my breath away. The narrator recalls a meeting at a popular New England music festival (I’ve been to the one that must be a model for the one in the story, as a spectator) between him and his Piano Teacher to discuss a project: recording the Rach 3rd. Instantly, the opening notes began playing in my head. (You can listen to it here, and follow the score.) It’s the first Rachmaninoff I knew well, at 16, from a birthday gift of Van Cliburn’s recording (I’d have preferred maybe Dion and the Belmonts). My tastes would develop quickly —my parents were professional concert violinists, and lessons were being thrust upon me. My mother’s perfectionism in supervising my practice was onerous and only whetted my teenage rebellion.

The story goes on to mention many of the composers and the works I grew up with, most of them Sergei Rachmaninoff’s canon. I accomplished more as a violinist than I really set out to do, following my parents into participation in the local symphony orchestra (they bought me a car so I could get back and forth from my college to Sunday night rehearsals), sometimes scoring work as a pit orchestra member for local musicals and church performances (at union scale sometimes!). I loved Rachmaninoff and the Rolling Stones equally.

But I digress. The story is about competition and ambition, about a master fearing his apprentice is getting too close to eclipsing him, about the desire to hold the youngster back, about disappointment in oneself. William Shih says that in this story he wanted to follow characters who harbor secrets and are faced with impossible choices, the intricacies of mentorship, “the complexities of gatekeeping and nepotism in artistic spaces.” This is terrain he and I know well.

I gave this post an apparently unpronounceable title, but included a picture that might help illuminate it as well as Rachmaninoff’s special place in my life. The picture shows the vanity license plate that I retained when I sold my late husband’s car in October. “You’re supposed to surrender that,” the title transfer agent said. “They [the Commonwealth] might come after you for it.” “That’ll be fun, ” I said.

We fell in love with Rachmaninoff in the background. Ron’s post-divorce gift to himself was the building of a library of classical music, back then on cassette tape, just before CDs became the norm. He was astonished when he saw my 12-inch vinyl collection. Although the Rolling Stones had departed with my ex, I still had the Beatles, and Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky, and, of course, Rachmaninoff. The individual who set us up hadn’t mentioned the music, probably didn’t know. I would eventually acquire a sweatshirt that said “Rachmaninoff Lovers Do It in E Minor.” It’s a reference to the Rach 2 Symphony. Listen to the Adagio  here. You’ll probably get what I mean.

If you can, seek out “The Masterclass.” And the Rach 3rd. And the Second Symphony.

Thank you, William Pei Shih, for your story and your friendship, and your leading me back to my life as a reader and a writer. And you, reading this. Thank you as well.