Words Suck

[quido]

That's earlyish Beethoven too - for the most part it just got better. A lot of it is difficult for the casual listener to get their brain around, though. In my one year as a music major I wrote a research paper on Beethoven's last piano sonata, the Op. 111. I thought I knew a lot going into it, but fuck - that kind of genius is basically all but unparalleled these days. 90% of my listening as a teenager was classical piano of some sort or another. I taught myself to play starting at age 11 (with Beethoven actually! 3rd movement of his fifth piano concerto - a bit much for a noob, but you gotta play what you love) and never stopped. I got into it really hard for a few years in my mid-20s, but I'm more an electric guitar man these days.

Beethoven is the man, but Chopin is raw unbridled emotion. One of my fortes with music is the ability to absorb and imitate, so having listened to Arthur Rubinstein I can play Chopin Nocturnes with the heart of a holocaust Jew.