Why We Love Performing Classical Music
I am an amateur pianist, and I love performing classical music. Reflecting on my willingness to follow the score written by the composers, I found it bizarre: I follow the score to such an extreme extent that I am willing to take the risk of ruining a public performance. Sometimes, the instructions on the score ask something that seems to be unnecessary for producing a certain acoustic effect; the same acoustic effect can be easily achieved by a different and much easier approach. Still, I strictly follow the score. I am not alone. The pianist Malcolm Bilson once discussed how to play the opening of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, op. 111, which has a very dangerous leap in the left hand that can be played much more easily with two hands. Bilson thinks pianists should play it only with the left hand: I say go out on the stage and be plenty nervous because it’s dangerous, and because that’s what Beethoven wrote. He wrote something that is potentially dangerous, and you …
