The work was included in the short fiction collection The Brigadier and the Golf Widow (1964), published by Harper and Row.
Jessica is deeply discontented with her role as homemaker, and expresses it through neglecting to maintain good order and discipline among her children.
Whenever Seton arrives home from work, Jessica regularly presents the family with burnt and unpalatable meals, distracted by other domestic responsibilities.
After waiting in her anteroom, Seton is ordered to present himself to Miss Deming: she is a short, elderly woman with graying hair.
His ineptitude shames him, but Miss Deming ends the session with the command that he practice a finger drill at home and return next week.
Seton detects a marked change in Jessica's performance as homemaker: she rarely burns the meat in the oven, and serves the meal graciously.
At his fifth lesson, Seton is shocked to discover that Miss Deming has guests in her kitchen: a couple of young motorcycle toughs from New York.
Seton makes a final visit to Miss Deming's home to inform her that he is satisfied, and no longer needs further instruction.
Seton informs the police that she was his music teacher, but when asked, he denies that he saw any young men at her house.
[5][6][7][8] "The Music Teacher" is one of Cheever's supreme achievements in its ability to evoke both humor and fear simultaneously and to recreate the myth of Demeter-Hecate, which grounds the story in the haunting power of ancient narrative.
"[13] Literary critic Lynne Waldeland discerns a duality in the theme of the story, a combination of modern American narratives of the clash between gender roles, and the intervention of supernatural powers, wielded by a witch to impose domestic tranquility: "The Music Teacher" tied together two motifs: the role of women in middle-class American society and the presence of almost supernatural powers in the world…The story is memorable for its perceptive treatment of a sexual struggle for supremacy within a marriage and the oddly convincing intervention of witchcraft…"[14][15]Waldeland adds: "The story is effective except for the final scene of the piano teacher's death, which really doesn't add to our sense of her mysteriousness.