Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: From someone who has played Beethoven's piano ....

See, I never minded playing Beethoven. I've gone through a couple of the sonatas (I have the complete set too), and I sort of enjoy the more classical feel -- I think it's more demanding of the performer since you can't just play everything rubato with the pedal, but it still has more emotional content than other purely 'classical' works. The challenge, one that is even more present in composers like Bach, is to keep within the musical paradigm and still make it lyrical, etc. -- I find that you can do much more subtle things with the music because of the restrictions imposed.

It sort of reminds me on how I -always- hated playing Bach when I was taking piano exams until I heard Glen Gould play Bach one day -- it really blew my mind, since he had the talent for bringing out all the interesting counterpunctual harmonies in interesting ways. Playing Bach correctly is still hard, but at least now I have a goal in mind when it comes to interpretation.

That being said, I've recently started getting into Brahms in a serious way, and I'm really enjoying his style - his ability to place chords and use the bottom of the piano well for that 'full' sound really contrasts with other Romantic composers that I've played before.

The third movement of the Moonlight is tough - I never really worked on it enough to get it up to performance standards, more just for my own purposes. I've played the Pathetique, the Waldstein (the typical 'guy' sonata) and a few others as well.

- Vincent

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