Peter Schenkman wrote:

>Ed Zubrow wrote:
>
>>I will pipe in with a quip for which I do not know the attribution.
>>"Mozart is to easy for amateurs and too difficult for virtuosos."
>
>The author of the "quip" is Artur Schnabel and I think it's "to easy for
>students and to difficult for artists" referring to the piano sonatas of
>Mozart.......and I don't disagree.  The number of notes per bar is not the
>most difficult part of any performance (on any instrument) the trick, or
>call it what you like, is how beautifully one can play it.

Thanks to Peter for the attribution (and the sharpening of the quote!)
though I note that Kevin cites Cortot as the source.  Nonetheless, I'd like
to pursue this line a bit further.  One lister noted Horowitz's comment
that Traumerei was the hardest to play.

I really feel that in addition to the "knuckle busting" challenges of piano
music the interpretive challenges are equally important.  Steve Schwartz
listed several very interesting components of technical challenge.  I'd
like to try a few interpretive hurdles:

1.  Rendering the music in an original or even surprising way that seems
inevitable when you hear it.

2.  Providing aural "color."

3.  Treating the same material in substantively different ways without
sounding ridiculous.

4.  Making the structure of the piece apparent and intelligible.

Each of these challenges could exist in a technically easier piece; they
might even be more pronounced in such a piece.

So, I am left wondering what some of the pieces are that even good players
can't seem to "get?"

Ed