When I Started Taking Piano, I Only Wanted To Learn Two Pieces. This Is One Of Them.

When I was first began taking piano lessons, I had little in the way of expectations (or goals). I was very late to the game -- started when I was 14 -- and while I was hopeful that it would improve my ability to analyze and appreciate music (which is surely did), I doubted I'd become any good at it.

I was right: I didn't become good. But that was fine, because my chief aim -- greater appreciation and greater understanding -- had been achieved. And besides, the only two pieces I had ever aspired to learn were pieces that I ended up being able to play.

The first was Chopin's Nocturne in E Minor, Op. 72, which is just gorgeous. (And HARD!) And the second was this Mozart Fantasy, which I love in no small part because it sounds so much more dramatic (and romantic) than the music I typically associated with him, though such a "rigidly classical" categorization was probably a bit unfair. (What can I say? I was young. And didn't have a great appreciation or understanding of music, remember?)

Attribution(s): "The Old Piano" via photopin (license).