QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Wed 9th February 2011, 8:00am)
Well I learned classical piano from age of 7-14 I think. But I never learned to play without music until recently. Yeah I love Chopin, absolute genius. Easily my favourite composer. Ballade no.1 is possibly the most astounding piece I've ever heard in terms of technical quality. Who plays it best, mmm I'd say Zimmerman just edges Horowitz on that one. Liszt and Bach are also my favourites. Admittedly Mozart doesn't really do it for me, I prefer Beethoven. For somebody who never used to like classical and was solely a rock fan for many years I've come to appreciate it in recent times. A lot of classical music doesn't float my boat and a lot of jazz I find too avant garde. I generally like very melodic "emotional" sort of music.
That is Chopin's best indeed. It's just amazing. Throughout the piece a part is trying to get out but can't be articulated, he keeps trying to rephrase it but it's never quite right so he abruptly stops or gets frustrated and tries again until at a point or two just throws up his hands and unleashes a stream of articulation which doesn't quite get the point across so he's back at trying to express the unexpressable and failing again... up and down, down and up, slow and fast but never just right in an exactly perfect way.
Like trying to explain/say something very difficult and honest to someone you really care about and just being unable to do it because it is so important and difficult.
Other than that you guys are gonna force me to put up a Yngwie Malmsteen video.