Commentary We belong to each other, and we learn everything worthwhile by submitting to the authority of a tradition we didn’t invent. We don’t make it up from scratch according to our feelings of the moment. In an essay celebrating the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s death, David Goldman traces the line of piano teachers descending in a direct line from Beethoven himself down through the 19th and 20th centuries to his own teacher, the Italian pianist Carlo Levi Minzi. Any serious students of piano submit to a tradition, whether or not they go on to become a concert pianist. They learn and develop the norms and the particular virtues that the practice—of piano, chess, baseball, law, or medicine—requires and builds. Virtues might include, among those particular to mastery of the skills and knowledge required, perseverance and self-discipline (practicing whether you feel like it or not), humility, and gratitude. The ability …