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As has been observed, "The Piano Teacher" (or whatever you want to call it) is virtually a carbon copy of a decades-old tale credited to Olympic champion Bob Richards and immortalized in song during the mid-1970s by David Geddes. It tells of a young football player who in one single game overcomes his lack of athletic ability to score a winning touchdown in the hopes that his dead father, who was blind in life, can finally "see" him excel. The similarities are too glaring to be coincidental.
Furthermore, the over-the-top, one-two punchline of the newer story — whereby we learn that the grown-up Robby not only died in the Oklahoma City bombing but happened to be playing piano at the time (!) — reeks of parody. I find it difficult to read "The Piano Teacher" as anything other than an elaborate sick joke.
Among the reasons most often cited for doubting the authenticity of the story are the following:
- The teacher is given a last name but the student is not.
- Iowa telephone directories list no one by the name of "Mildred Hondorf."
- Miss Hondorf, supposedly a longtime resident of Des Moines, can't seem to spell the name of her own city (though in some versions the error has been corrected).
- A piano student so lacking in basic skills and talent as Robby would not be able to teach himself to play Mozart.
- Music teachers don't normally perform at their students' recitals, nor do they typically allow students to play "surprise" pieces that haven't been announced or approved beforehand.
- We are told that Robby whipped through Mozart's Concerto No. 21 in C Major in six-and-a-half minutes flat. The actual work is roughly 30 minutes long.
- The Concerto is not a solo piece. It would never be performed publicly without the accompaniment of an orchestra, or at least a second piano.
- The phrase "from allegro to virtuoso" is ridiculous to anyone who understands the meanings of those terms.
- As to the Oklahoma City bombing, while four men with the first name "Robert" were killed in that tragedy, none seem to match the biographical profile of our protagonist. No account of the incident has ever mentioned that someone was playing piano at the time of the explosion.
- What the heck was a piano doing in a federal office building?
- What was a federal employee doing playing piano in the office building at 9:02 a.m. on a workday?
- If the story is true, why have we never heard of it before now, six years after the Oklahoma City massacre took place?
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