From the Class of 1974

            Encouragement comes in many forms.  When we were students at Carleton, you were attending  reunions and being asked to donate generously.  Giving to the alumni fund may seem impersonal, but is in reality a direct and highly personal encouragement.   Without the student aid grants I received I could not have attended Carleton, and the world I know would have been much smaller.  My financial aid letters remain in my disorganized boxes of memorabilia, reminders of my great, good fortune.  I am grateful to those alumni who established the fund that provided my grants and the unnamed alumni who year after year donated the money that met the costs not covered by tuition.  All of us in the class of 1974, whether we received grants, scholarships, loans, or no specific aid, realize that alumni giving was supporting us. 

            As the years roll by, I recognize more keenly the power of praise and encouragement.  I appreciate now that encouragement passes from generation to generation.  This was crystallized for me in an account of a brief episode in the life of the classical pianist Andor Foldes, as recorded in his autobiography.  Foldes, born in Budapest in 1913, was a child prodigy who advanced quickly, but not without toil and great anxiety.  He relates how the praise of his father, and then fellow orchestra members, kept him going at difficult moments.  At the age of sixteen, he became embroiled in differences with his music teacher, a conflict which my musician friends tell me has derailed many promising careers.  In the midst of that crisis, Foldes was invited by a local patron of the arts to meet Emil von Sauer, the last living pupil of Franz Liszt. Foldes writes that when he was introduced,

Sauer divined the real purpose of my presence and asked me to play something for him.  I sat down at the piano and launched into Bach’s Toccata in C major.  He listened intently and asked for more.  I suggested a Beethoven sonata.  He nodded his approval and I put all my heart into playing the Pathetique.  When I had finished this work, he ordered me to play on.  I continued with Schumann’s Papillons.  Finally, he rose and kissed me on my forehead.  “My son,” he said, “when I was your age I became a student of Liszt.  He kissed me on my forehead after my first lesson, saying, ‘Take good care of this kiss - it comes from Beethoven, who gave it me after hearing me play when I was your age.’  I waited for years to pass on this sacred heritage, but now I feel you deserve it.”  Nothing in my life has meant as much to me as Sauer’s praise.  His kiss lifted me miraculously out of my crisis.  I might not have become the pianist I am today without Sauer’s encouragement.  Just recently, when giving a master class for young pianists, I felt that one of the youthful artists could do even better if given a small pat on the back.  I singled out the one thing he did best and praised him for it before the whole class.  His eyes began to glow, and almost immediately he outdid himself - to his own amazement and that of the class.  A few words brought out the best in him.  Praise is a potent, driving force.  It lights a small candle in a dark room and its glow begins to fill the space around us.  This is magic, and I marvel that it always works.

            Your contributions of time and money to support us when we were students at Carleton were no less potent praise, no less a personal connection across generations than Beethoven’s kiss.  I hope that our class cares for and passes on this heritage as well as you did.  On behalf of myself, my co-chair Jean Thiel who found the Gridley Cookie recipe and has done so much else to make the Tea a reality, our program and gift committee members, and all of the members of the Carleton College Class of 1974, thank you.

                                                                                                Steven Braun, Co-Chair

                                                                                                Class of ’74 Program Committee