Etudes for Piano Students

Fourteen-year-old Klárka Králová, from Liberec, is admitted to the conservatory in Prague. She will study piano. Her mother won a competition as an interpreter and she will begin working in Prague. These two successes lead to a family celebration, but there is an obstacle. Klára's father is a doctor and does not want to move to Prague. He has been treating a patient in Liberec for seven years. Now, the patient is dying and Král does not want to leave him. Klárka breaks her right arm.. She meets Štěpán, a painter apprentice. The next day she does not want to go to classes though she would be able to play with her left hand, so she calls her teacher saying she has the flue. She stands in for her friend, the postwoman Zuzana, delivering letters. However, she cannot deliver the pension to her teacher, as he would find out she is lying. By avoiding this, she causes trouble for Zuzana at the post office. The girl witnesses a row between Štěpán and his father in the house under construction on the outskirts. Štěpán grew up in a children's home, his father disowned him, but now he forces him to help build the house. Štěpán refuses and runs away. Králová decides to move to Prague without her husband. The unhappy Klárka seeks comfort with Štěpán. She does not want to move to Prague without her father. She visits him in the hospital, but is not able to tell him that her mother left them. In the hospital she also meets Štěpán, who is visiting his father, who broke his leg. Klárka overnights with her father in the hospital and, in the morning, learns that her mother is not going to move to Prague. The happy Klárka comes back home, plays a Chopin's etude with her left hand and she rushes out to tell Štěpán she will go to Prague alone, but she will be coming back home for weekends and holidays.