32 GB memory stick

On 18/11/2011 22:34, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:31:30 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

(Though I recommend his Rondo alla Turca played with vigour on a
"Turkish" piano, like the one at the Finchcocks collection near
Goudhurst in southern England:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpIv4fLSzps is the instrument and
performer I have in mind, though I don't know why the still there is
chosen. This is actually a rather restrained rendering: if you get the
chance to hear him live while he still lives, do - as, sadly, his
deafness and frailness increase, the performances have become more,
shall we say, individual, and certainly lively.)

Well, I found the percussion superfluous[1]...And I wouldn't want to
march that fast, but I have bad legs these days :-)

There's an English Country Dance (or at least, it's a set dance), I
think called Good Man (or Men) of Cambridge, done to that movement with
a piano and band. I dislike the music until near the end, where it gets
very jazzy, which in my view partly absolves the players for their
corruption of Mozart's music. This is *my* taste; others like it.

[1] I am speaking with restraint :-)

Think of it as a curiosity. For it was a fad in those days to have Turkish

percussion instruments attached to pianos. Much like today's bricks passing
for "art" in modern "museums"!
-- choro

On 18/11/2011 22:54, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In article , on Fri, 18 Nov 2011,
Gene E. Bloch wrote
On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:31:30 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

(Though I recommend his Rondo alla Turca played with vigour on a
"Turkish" piano, like the one at the Finchcocks collection near
Goudhurst in southern England:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpIv4fLSzps is the instrument and
performer I have in mind, though I don't know why the still there is
chosen. This is actually a rather restrained rendering: if you get the
chance to hear him live while he still lives, do - as, sadly, his
deafness and frailness increase, the performances have become more,
shall we say, individual, and certainly lively.)

Well, I found the percussion superfluous[1]...And I wouldn't want to
march that fast, but I have bad legs these days :-)
[]
(It wasn't me that mentioned marching, Janissary or otherwise. Unless
rondo means march, and I don't think it does.)

The following is my attempt at regurgitation of what the usual spiel is
at Finchcocks, so I have no independent knowledge as to its veracity: At
the time of the composition of that piece, the area where it was
composed had lots of itinerant musicians who played in a certain style;
they were referred to by the locals as Turkish musicians, without the
term necessarily being strictly accurate (much as we might inaccurately
refer to "Gypsy musicians" here). The style involved much embellishment.
The piano was referred to as a Turkish piano, not because it had
anything to do with Turkey as such, but because it had the novelty
attachments ("bells, cymbal clash and a drum mechanism striking the
soundboard"). There is strong implication - I can't remember if they
actually baldly say it - that the "Rondo alla Turca" was actually
composed for such an instrument; certainly its being called "alla Turca"
suggests, to me, that it was indeed. As such, the percussion can't
really be "superfluous", I would say. (I guess one would have to see the
manuscript to be sure - though even then only if the composer explicitly
notated the extras.)

(Just to reiterate: the percussion wasn't additional, but was - is -
actually built into the piano itself! I'm not sure if I could actually
see how the performer operated it - presumably extra levers, pedals, and
the like.)

I am afraid you are right on this subject for Turks did not even have
pianos or indeed keyboard instruments. But persussion instruments such
as cymbals etc were borrowed from the Turks. It's their addition to
Western music, if you like. To this day, the most famous cymbals are
manufactured by Armenians who emigrated to the USA from Turkey.
Zildjian! Zil meaning bell, zildji is a "beller" (either a bell player
i.e. ringer or a bell maker/seller etc) and the -ian suffix is the
equivalent of -son as in Peterson.
-- choro

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:11:24 -0800, Mack A. Damia wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:32:56 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:40:00 -0800, Mack A. Damia wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:11:07 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:42:34 +0000, Ed Cryer wrote:

In my humble opinion the greatest of all the great "starving in a
garret" composers was Schubert. Shy, tubby little Schubert. Schubert who
saw Beethoven striding through Vienna, never got introduced to him but
helped carry his coffin. Schubert who wouldn't have known what to do
with fame and public recognition if it had blocked his doorway.

Yet there are people who just don't like Schubert's music...

There are some very dull people in the world........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6_Sb...eature=related

I agree :-)

I chose to skip the video...That old impromptu is very dull. To me.

But the essence of the beauty of it is watching Horowitz play it.

You have forgotten, apparently, that not everyone has the same taste.

We can agree that there are piano players and then there are pianists.

Indeed. I agree with you on that issue and related ones.

However, we might still not sort a set of people who play the piano into
the same bins :-)

That's badly phrased. What I mean is after you and I sort the same bunch
of such people into the two bins, our bin contents might not match each
other.

With luck, a majority of people will be binned the same, but I'm sure a
few will be different (and that goes for any two judges, I daresay).

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 18/11/2011 23:52, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:54:30 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

In , on Fri, 18 Nov 2011,
Gene E. wrote
On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:31:30 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

(Though I recommend his Rondo alla Turca played with vigour on a
"Turkish" piano, like the one at the Finchcocks collection near
Goudhurst in southern England:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpIv4fLSzps is the instrument and
performer I have in mind, though I don't know why the still there is
chosen. This is actually a rather restrained rendering: if you get the
chance to hear him live while he still lives, do - as, sadly, his
deafness and frailness increase, the performances have become more,
shall we say, individual, and certainly lively.)

Well, I found the percussion superfluous[1]...And I wouldn't want to
march that fast, but I have bad legs these days :-)
[]
(It wasn't me that mentioned marching, Janissary or otherwise. Unless
rondo means march, and I don't think it does.)

Mea culpa. You are quite right about the name; I was thinking of it as
Marcia alla Turca, which is either off the wall completely, or the name
of another piece of music that I've heard of, and I was possibly
influenced by others' remarks in the thread.

No, both names are correct. The piece is actually a movement from a
keyboard sonata. Officially it is marked as "Rondo alla Turca" or
simply as "Alla Turca by Mozart". Not to be confused with Beethoven's
Turkish march which is an orchestral work.
-- choro

But maybe I'm not wrong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrk-z...eature=related

Here's one by another composer you might have heard of :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtg8G...eature=related

(I'm not used to hearing this as a piano work, it's part of the Ruins of
Athens, an orchestral work.)

Rondo is the name for a piece of music that has a chorus part that
repeats in between other parts that may be different, i.e., a pattern
like A-B-A-C-A-D-A. The A part is called the ritornello, the thing that
returns.

The following is my attempt at regurgitation of what the usual spiel is
at Finchcocks, so I have no independent knowledge as to its veracity: At
the time of the composition of that piece, the area where it was
composed had lots of itinerant musicians who played in a certain style;
they were referred to by the locals as Turkish musicians, without the
term necessarily being strictly accurate (much as we might inaccurately
refer to "Gypsy musicians" here). The style involved much embellishment.
The piano was referred to as a Turkish piano, not because it had
anything to do with Turkey as such, but because it had the novelty
attachments ("bells, cymbal clash and a drum mechanism striking the
soundboard"). There is strong implication - I can't remember if they
actually baldly say it - that the "Rondo alla Turca" was actually
composed for such an instrument; certainly its being called "alla Turca"
suggests, to me, that it was indeed. As such, the percussion can't
really be "superfluous", I would say. (I guess one would have to see the
manuscript to be sure - though even then only if the composer explicitly
notated the extras.)

I should have qualified my original remark. I don't mean it as a
universal truth, but as a statement of my own likes and dislikes. Unlike
how some other posters in this group *seem* to think, I do know that
when it comes to musical preferences, YMWV, your mileage *will* vary,
for all possible values of "you".

(Just to reiterate: the percussion wasn't additional, but was - is -
actually built into the piano itself! I'm not sure if I could actually
see how the performer operated it - presumably extra levers, pedals, and
the like.)

I wasn't referring to where the percussion was, but only to how I liked
it (namely, not!). After a bit, it did become clear from the related
material that the sounds came from the piano, not from a drummer sitting
nearby.

On Sat, 19 Nov 2011 00:35:25 +0000, choro wrote:

I'm not sure I'd like to march to a 9:8 rhythm. Even though I really do
*stumble*, I still prefer to march in a duple rhythm. In short, I don't
think a march would be in 9:8.

There are plenty of dances from Asia Minor and the Balkans that use a
9:8 rhythm, usually quick-quick-quick-slow (four beats counted
2-2-2-3:8), sometimes Q-S-Q-Q or Q-Q_S-Q, but they aren't marches.

There is a dance family called "pajdu¹ko" in a Q-S rhythm (5:8) in
Bulgaria and nearby. I'm told that the word means "limping" (the "pajd-"
part relates to the Indo-European root for foot).

Ah, but you should see how they march. I know this 9/8 tempo seems a non
starter for a march but once you have seen a Janissary march, you begin
to understand it. I saw them once in real life and once on TV when they
appeared at the Edinborough Tatoo years ago. And one day I came across a
Janissary march video, probably on YouTube and I sat down analysing the
tempo and rhythm + the steps of the march. That's how I know.

I'll try to remember to look for that. I'm willing to be wrong.

Meantime, I won't march to a 9:8 drummer, m'self :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 18/11/2011 22:58, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:51:01 +0000, choro wrote:

As an aside, I was thinking of buying some cheap speakers for the
computer to cut down on the mess of wires here, but this morning, before
I went out, I happened to listen to a number of this thread's YouTube
links to the Bach.

Just hook up your computer sound output to your hi-fi using any unused
input on the hi-fi such as your AUX input.

Help me understand how that would cut down on the mess of wires.

To follow your suggestion, I'd have to run the audio output cable from
the computer to another room, bring the speakers from that room to the
computer room, and finally run the speaker wires from there to the
computer room. Not only more cables, but now I'd have to find room near
the computer for two large speaker enclosures, and moreover, I would
thereby lose the speakers in the other room.

You missed my point completely. Let's try again. I *have* decent
speakers connected to my computer, but they use a lot of wires. I
thought of getting a pair of speakers that only use one cable, but
listening online to BWV 565 in response to several suggestions in this
monster thread brought home to me that I would not enjoy the reduced
sound quality, so I decided to stick with *what I already have*.

Sorry, I didn't know that you are already an audiophile, or in other words

a nutter like me!
-- choro

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:59:26 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:11:24 -0800, Mack A. Damia wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:32:56 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:40:00 -0800, Mack A. Damia wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:11:07 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:42:34 +0000, Ed Cryer wrote:

In my humble opinion the greatest of all the great "starving in a
garret" composers was Schubert. Shy, tubby little Schubert. Schubert who
saw Beethoven striding through Vienna, never got introduced to him but
helped carry his coffin. Schubert who wouldn't have known what to do
with fame and public recognition if it had blocked his doorway.

Yet there are people who just don't like Schubert's music...

There are some very dull people in the world........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6_Sb...eature=related

I agree :-)

I chose to skip the video...That old impromptu is very dull. To me.

But the essence of the beauty of it is watching Horowitz play it.

You have forgotten, apparently, that not everyone has the same taste.

We can agree that there are piano players and then there are pianists.

Indeed. I agree with you on that issue and related ones.

However, we might still not sort a set of people who play the piano into
the same bins :-)

That's badly phrased. What I mean is after you and I sort the same bunch
of such people into the two bins, our bin contents might not match each
other.

With luck, a majority of people will be binned the same, but I'm sure a
few will be different (and that goes for any two judges, I daresay).

I was surprised by your earlier answer. Do you feel the same way
about the Moonlight or the Pathetique sonatas?

This is what greatness is; that once never tires of it, and I think
Schubert's Impromptu is one of the most beautiful works of music ever
composed for the piano. But that's just me.

As far as piano playing goes, we were talking about Liberace
yesterday. One might not include him in the "greats" such as Horowitz
or Graffman, but he was a solid entertainer who gave you your money's
worth. My own thought is that the truly great artists/performers are
those who are able to connect your soul with the composer's.

On Sat, 19 Nov 2011 00:38:55 +0000, choro wrote:

Well, I found the percussion superfluous[1]...And I wouldn't want to
march that fast, but I have bad legs these days :-)

[snip]

Think of it as a curiosity. For it was a fad in those days to have Turkish
percussion instruments attached to pianos. Much like today's bricks passing
for "art" in modern "museums"!

Here's what I said to J. P. Gilliver above:

"I wasn't referring to where the percussion was, but only to how I liked
it (namely, not!). After a bit, it did become clear from the related
material that the sounds came from the piano, not from a drummer sitting
nearby."

It's a bit ambiguous, as I wrote it. By "from the piano" I mean "from
stuff built into the piano".

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:02:53 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Sat, 19 Nov 2011 00:35:25 +0000, choro wrote:

I'm not sure I'd like to march to a 9:8 rhythm. Even though I really do
*stumble*, I still prefer to march in a duple rhythm. In short, I don't
think a march would be in 9:8.

There are plenty of dances from Asia Minor and the Balkans that use a
9:8 rhythm, usually quick-quick-quick-slow (four beats counted
2-2-2-3:8), sometimes Q-S-Q-Q or Q-Q_S-Q, but they aren't marches.

There is a dance family called "pajduško" in a Q-S rhythm (5:8) in
Bulgaria and nearby. I'm told that the word means "limping" (the "pajd-"
part relates to the Indo-European root for foot).

Ah, but you should see how they march. I know this 9/8 tempo seems a non
starter for a march but once you have seen a Janissary march, you begin
to understand it. I saw them once in real life and once on TV when they
appeared at the Edinborough Tatoo years ago. And one day I came across a
Janissary march video, probably on YouTube and I sat down analysing the
tempo and rhythm + the steps of the march. That's how I know.

I'll try to remember to look for that. I'm willing to be wrong.

Meantime, I won't march to a 9:8 drummer, m'self :-)

How about 9.....9.....9 ?

(I'll get me hat and coat)

On 18/11/2011 23:44, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In article , on Fri, 18 Nov 2011,
choro wrote
[]
Count your blessings, sir, count your blessings and be thankful that
these days you still have the leisure time to devote to finer things
in life and stop complaining about bricks on a museum floor passing as
art. For art it is NOT!
[]
Who are you to say it isn't?

(Note I'm playing devil's advocate he the bricks don't do much for me
either. But the question is still valid ...)

You ARE acting the devil's advocate. I'd say Tracy Emin's bed is a
better bet. You might even find real relief there! ;-)
-- choro

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:07:34 -0800, Mack A. Damia wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:59:26 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:11:24 -0800, Mack A. Damia wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:32:56 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:40:00 -0800, Mack A. Damia wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:11:07 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:42:34 +0000, Ed Cryer wrote:

In my humble opinion the greatest of all the great "starving in a
garret" composers was Schubert. Shy, tubby little Schubert. Schubert who
saw Beethoven striding through Vienna, never got introduced to him but
helped carry his coffin. Schubert who wouldn't have known what to do
with fame and public recognition if it had blocked his doorway.

Yet there are people who just don't like Schubert's music...

There are some very dull people in the world........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6_Sb...eature=related

I agree :-)

I chose to skip the video...That old impromptu is very dull. To me.

But the essence of the beauty of it is watching Horowitz play it.

You have forgotten, apparently, that not everyone has the same taste.

We can agree that there are piano players and then there are pianists.

Indeed. I agree with you on that issue and related ones.

However, we might still not sort a set of people who play the piano into
the same bins :-)

That's badly phrased. What I mean is after you and I sort the same bunch
of such people into the two bins, our bin contents might not match each
other.

With luck, a majority of people will be binned the same, but I'm sure a
few will be different (and that goes for any two judges, I daresay).

I was surprised by your earlier answer. Do you feel the same way
about the Moonlight or the Pathetique sonatas?

The same way as what?

In my view, they don't come remotely close to op. 109, 110, and 111.

Someone told me about a local pianist giving a recital of those three.
As we were getting ready to go, I told my friend that they are the
pinnacle of piano sonatas, and was thunderstruck when the performer, in
her preliminary remarks, referred to them as...the pinnacle of piano
sonatas...

I was more thunderstruck - actually totally wrung out - by the end of
the evening.

That music is power like none other, maybe even more power than some of
Mozart's vocal music.

That's *my* mileage.

This is what greatness is; that once never tires of it, and I think
Schubert's Impromptu is one of the most beautiful works of music ever
composed for the piano. But that's just me.

As far as piano playing goes, we were talking about Liberace
yesterday. One might not include him in the "greats" such as Horowitz
or Graffman, but he was a solid entertainer who gave you your money's
worth. My own thought is that the truly great artists/performers are
those who are able to connect your soul with the composer's.


--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Sat, 19 Nov 2011 01:02:24 +0000, choro wrote:

On 18/11/2011 23:52, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:54:30 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

In , on Fri, 18 Nov 2011,
Gene E. wrote
On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:31:30 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

(Though I recommend his Rondo alla Turca played with vigour on a
"Turkish" piano, like the one at the Finchcocks collection near
Goudhurst in southern England:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpIv4fLSzps is the instrument and
performer I have in mind, though I don't know why the still there is
chosen. This is actually a rather restrained rendering: if you get the
chance to hear him live while he still lives, do - as, sadly, his
deafness and frailness increase, the performances have become more,
shall we say, individual, and certainly lively.)

Well, I found the percussion superfluous[1]...And I wouldn't want to
march that fast, but I have bad legs these days :-)
[]
(It wasn't me that mentioned marching, Janissary or otherwise. Unless
rondo means march, and I don't think it does.)

Mea culpa. You are quite right about the name; I was thinking of it as
Marcia alla Turca, which is either off the wall completely, or the name
of another piece of music that I've heard of, and I was possibly
influenced by others' remarks in the thread.

No, both names are correct. The piece is actually a movement from a
keyboard sonata. Officially it is marked as "Rondo alla Turca" or
simply as "Alla Turca by Mozart". Not to be confused with Beethoven's
Turkish march which is an orchestral work.
-- choro

But maybe I'm not wrong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrk-z...eature=related

Here's one by another composer you might have heard of :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtg8G...eature=related

(I'm not used to hearing this as a piano work, it's part of the Ruins of
Athens, an orchestral work.)

Suggestion: read the entire post before replying.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Sat, 19 Nov 2011 01:06:11 +0000, choro wrote:

On 18/11/2011 22:58, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:51:01 +0000, choro wrote:

As an aside, I was thinking of buying some cheap speakers for the
computer to cut down on the mess of wires here, but this morning, before
I went out, I happened to listen to a number of this thread's YouTube
links to the Bach.

Just hook up your computer sound output to your hi-fi using any unused
input on the hi-fi such as your AUX input.

Help me understand how that would cut down on the mess of wires.

To follow your suggestion, I'd have to run the audio output cable from
the computer to another room, bring the speakers from that room to the
computer room, and finally run the speaker wires from there to the
computer room. Not only more cables, but now I'd have to find room near
the computer for two large speaker enclosures, and moreover, I would
thereby lose the speakers in the other room.

You missed my point completely. Let's try again. I *have* decent
speakers connected to my computer, but they use a lot of wires. I
thought of getting a pair of speakers that only use one cable, but
listening online to BWV 565 in response to several suggestions in this
monster thread brought home to me that I would not enjoy the reduced
sound quality, so I decided to stick with *what I already have*.

Sorry, I didn't know that you are already an audiophile, or in other words

a nutter like me!
-- choro

I just posted this to another post of yours:
"Suggestion: read the entire post before replying."

I will modify it now to read
"Suggestion: read the entire post *carefully* before replying."

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:09:49 -0800, Mack A. Damia wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:02:53 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Sat, 19 Nov 2011 00:35:25 +0000, choro wrote:

I'm not sure I'd like to march to a 9:8 rhythm. Even though I really do
*stumble*, I still prefer to march in a duple rhythm. In short, I don't
think a march would be in 9:8.

There are plenty of dances from Asia Minor and the Balkans that use a
9:8 rhythm, usually quick-quick-quick-slow (four beats counted
2-2-2-3:8), sometimes Q-S-Q-Q or Q-Q_S-Q, but they aren't marches.

There is a dance family called "pajduško" in a Q-S rhythm (5:8) in
Bulgaria and nearby. I'm told that the word means "limping" (the "pajd-"
part relates to the Indo-European root for foot).

Ah, but you should see how they march. I know this 9/8 tempo seems a non
starter for a march but once you have seen a Janissary march, you begin
to understand it. I saw them once in real life and once on TV when they
appeared at the Edinborough Tatoo years ago. And one day I came across a
Janissary march video, probably on YouTube and I sat down analysing the
tempo and rhythm + the steps of the march. That's how I know.

I'll try to remember to look for that. I'm willing to be wrong.

Meantime, I won't march to a 9:8 drummer, m'self :-)

How about 9.....9.....9 ?

(I'll get me hat and coat)

Wait, before you go, please explain that!

I'm guessing that you mean something like step-step-step. But like
Heisenberg, I am uncertain.

I'll get me hat and coat now too, but I'll be back for your answer :-)


--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 19/11/2011 01:07, Mack A. Damia wrote:
On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:59:26 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:11:24 -0800, Mack A. Damia wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:32:56 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:40:00 -0800, Mack A. Damia wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:11:07 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:42:34 +0000, Ed Cryer wrote:

In my humble opinion the greatest of all the great "starving in a
garret" composers was Schubert. Shy, tubby little Schubert. Schubert who
saw Beethoven striding through Vienna, never got introduced to him but
helped carry his coffin. Schubert who wouldn't have known what to do
with fame and public recognition if it had blocked his doorway.

Yet there are people who just don't like Schubert's music...

There are some very dull people in the world........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6_Sb...eature=related

I agree :-)

I chose to skip the video...That old impromptu is very dull. To me.

But the essence of the beauty of it is watching Horowitz play it.

You have forgotten, apparently, that not everyone has the same taste.

We can agree that there are piano players and then there are pianists.

Indeed. I agree with you on that issue and related ones.

However, we might still not sort a set of people who play the piano into
the same bins :-)

That's badly phrased. What I mean is after you and I sort the same bunch
of such people into the two bins, our bin contents might not match each
other.

With luck, a majority of people will be binned the same, but I'm sure a
few will be different (and that goes for any two judges, I daresay).

I was surprised by your earlier answer. Do you feel the same way
about the Moonlight or the Pathetique sonatas?

This is what greatness is; that once never tires of it, and I think
Schubert's Impromptu is one of the most beautiful works of music ever
composed for the piano. But that's just me.

As far as piano playing goes, we were talking about Liberace
yesterday. One might not include him in the "greats" such as Horowitz
or Graffman, but he was a solid entertainer who gave you your money's
worth. My own thought is that the truly great artists/performers are
those who are able to connect your soul with the composer's.

I find your argument exasperating. How can you talk of Liberace and
Horowitz in the same breath?! This just beats me!

Liberace was not even a pianist. True, he tinkered with the piano but
that doesn't make him into a pianist, let alone a musician. He was a
"cheap" entertainer of people who had no taste!
-- choro