A moving memoir of Professor Rita Wagner

The pianist Gabor Csalog has written a tribute to the piano pedagogue, who died earlier this week, aged 75:

Rita Wagner: never have I encountered in anyone such glowing enthusiasm, such passionate readiness to help a fellow human. Most of all, she was the most marvelous, most unique teacher in the universe. This is an indisputable fact: those who wanted to know and experience this phenomenon in all its absolute magnificence did so, in her homeland and around the world.

Another point is that she herself, who had done so much for her students, wanted nothing for herself. When we look at her life story, we perceive her essence at once from the negative space, from what is missing. She lived only for teaching. No offer of position, power, career, interviews, nothing earthly could ever tempt or distract her. Perhaps even a high honor or title would have been unworthy of her because none could have been offered that would have matched the pinnacle of her pedagogy.

For her, only the music itself belonged to the higher regions, and she lived and breathed for it, for shedding light on its hidden reaches for her students with such wild passion, all the while sensing with uncanny empathy what to impart to whom and how. From the very start, she had a blessed gift for her profession worth decades – yet she always forged ahead further with passionate curiosity and eagerness; she wanted to learn and grow every day. How often she would refer to deficiencies in her knowledge, and yet how much more she knew than all of us… No matter how many times I would attend her lessons, I knew that even after several decades of teaching I would witness something that I had never seen before, something nobody wold ever be able to repeat. Even in the most impossible circumstances, even during the pandemic, she would continue to impart what was most unique, most unexpected, most important, most striking – all in her rare, radiantly impassioned way.

For an idealist like her, the tragic aspects of our world cause even greater suffering than for an average person. She was unable to tune out the troubles surrounding us. She tried to help everyone and but she took upon herself of course even those problems that could not be helped. Perhaps that is what made her ill – though she could have lived so much longer.

In her teaching activities there was not the subtlest hint of decline. She managed her grave illness and suffering so privately that none of us or the students would be aware. We simply could not have known that something was wrong – because all along she continued to give her utmost. This was as much of a miracle as the essence of her teaching. She died on the very summit, having achieved all she could. She had a beautiful life. Hundreds of students loved her. There will never be such a human being, such a teacher on this earth. What she has given countless musicians is a gift of a lifetime: the opportunity to grow.

Gábor Csalog
Tr. Agnes Horowitz