I READ in these pages the other day that eminent flautist James Galway is giving up teaching for a couple of years, because he finds it too draining: "You don't get the circle of energy back from these people. I am talking about a teenager who has left home, who hates her parents and thinks I am going to be the next Christ in her life." And while he coaches professionals individually, he prefers if they are married "so I don't have to put up with any of their private lives."

Meanwhile James lives with his third wife in the hills above Lucerne, home of his second wife, and all three wives and four children are friends: "Take Bertha, a farmer - the other day she came over with a beautiful cauliflower and Jeannie and I had that for dinner."

Did you ever get that deja vu feeling? For a number of years, I myself taught the clavichord in the hills north of Vienna, where I was living with my ninth wife, Suzette. It was an emotionally exhausting experience - I don't mean living with Suzette, though that had its downside too - I mean teaching. It was literally draining, as James Galway says: because among my pupils was the very same teenage girl with whom James was so unfortunately afflicted.

Jenny (not her real name) was about 16, and attractive in a gamine sort of way. I knew the moment I met her that she had run away from home and hated her parents, because she told me so before she even had her instrument tuned. The next thing she said was: "I think you are going to be the next Christ in my life."

As a world famous clavichord player I was used to this kind of reaction from teenage girls: "Someone has to be", I said evenly.

At this point my sixth wife Jackie walked in with a beautiful turnip, and Suzette and I had that for dinner.

Next morning, Jenny was early for her first clavichord lesson. When she set up her instrument in my music room, I discovered it was one of the enormous old fretted types, bigger than my own grand piano. So I gave her a Vienna address where she could trade it in it for a more modern and compact unfretted version, and had her drag it away on a sledge through the snow.

Jenny looked tiny and exhausted as I watched her through my panoramic lounge window, overlooking the Danau river, but it was clearly important that she should return something from the circle of energy I was providing.

At this point my fourth wife Sara walked in with an attractive carrot, and Suzette and I had that for lunch.

In the afternoon all 29 children from my various marriages came over. They all live in adjoining valleys just across the river, and when they are not gambolling merrily together or visiting the different mothers, they normally communicate by Yoruba drum - the "talking drums" of West Africa. It was quite pleasant for me to sit at home of an evening and listen to the varying tones and pitches of the kettledrums and hourglass drums fill the valleys as my offspring exchanged gossip and news. Pleasant up to a point of course: sometimes a circle of energy can go a bit far.

LATE in the afternoon, young Jenny, looking rather shattered, returned with the new clavichord, and dragged it in to the music room. Unfortunately I quickly discovered that two keys were out of tune. "Oh Christ!" screamed Jenny.

"No need to scream at me", I countered quietly. But I had to make her take it back. There is such a thing as tough love. Off she went through the snow filled valleys once again.

In the afternoon my second wife Maria walked in with a pot of tea, and Suzette and I had that for - well, for afternoon tea.

That evening, Hilary and Jacques, two of my professional students arrived. Naturally I had had them vetted pretty carefully before taking them on, to check they were married, so that there would be no question of them boring me with their private lives and nonsensical romantic complications.

Then I discovered that Jacques, just returned from a holiday in Ireland, had applied for a divorce from his delightful first wife Yolanda, and was "thinking of getting engaged" to a young Waterford colleen.

I had him pack his instrument and get out.

Then Jenny came back minus her clavichord and said she was off to find her next Christ.

Then my seventh wife Juliette came in with a beautiful swede, and Suzette and I had that for dinner.

Then Suzette came in with a beautiful Swede and had him for dessert. Then she said she was leaving me for him.

What the hell, I thought. More time for the clavichord, and myself.