I absolutely agree. And what’s wrong with “playful and delightful?” How many humans who’ve walked the earth have provided so much delight to so many?

And TJ, I’m afraid you’re wrong about Mozart. Gould wasn’t being entirely serious, just provocative, and even he said he greatly admired Mozart’s younger (in his 20s) works. And he made a very good recording of the C minor piano concerto. “[S]o much of his output consists of juvenilia — playful and delightful, but simple in unadorned and, flat out, not that interesting.”? Check out “Marriage of Figaro” or “Don Giovanni” and get back to me.

I do indeed like Prokofiev’s R&J very much. But for me, it’s not quite up there with the others.

So one night I say to my wife, who as a high school band member knows how to read music, “Listen to this” and she stands behind me while I play it, from the book because I haven’t memorized it. I finish and she says “Well, that’s very pretty, but it’s not what’s written on that page.” It seems my rudimentary reading was enough to get the right notes, but I was pretty much mangling their time values.

Well, it sounded good to me. I still can’t follow written music–it tells me what notes to play, but I have to get the timing from a recording.

I don’t know Chopin’s music well at all. Not entirely my cup of tea. But I did like Rubinstein better than Lang.

https://www.bestpianoclass.com/dashboard/the-best-piano-theory-course-for-beginners/piano-superhuman-overview/

Some of his students do quite well. I didn’t stop because his lessons were bad, but it just took more time than I was willing to spend.

I imagined the vast stretches of leisure which would open up for me in retirement. But it’s only so much. I am pushing ahead on math, programming and chess — any one of which could be a full-time pursuit.

–Clint Eastwood, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG2cux_6Rcw

I figured I would either stick with practicing or I wouldn’t. But either way I would have a piano in the living room like Americans of yore, which wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Well, I stuck with the Minuet in G and some basic beginners books plus a few stabs at Satie’s 1st Gymnopedie for a couple months, but with pressure from my college courses and general discouragement — it’s plain hard to get ten fingers to do different things at the same time — I’ve let my keyboard lie for the time being.

I may get back to it. Or perhaps some enchanted evening a guest will step up to the keys and thrill me with miracles of Bach or Beethoven or Satie.