I Learned Rush E in 5 Days Out of Spite
For some reason, contemporary social media communities see classical music as extremely boring, except for select cases where a piece is seen as "so fast" or something and some pieces have risen to the forefront to represent the peak excitement of classical music. Examples include flight of the bumblebee, moonlight sonata third movement, fantasie impromptu, and so on. My problem with this as an amateur classical pianist is that by having these pieces be seen as the "hardest pieces" (not helped by the fact that youtube pianists such as Vinheteiro forward this narrative in order to grow their own channels), most people ignore the real greatest pieces and pianist because they are more modest. The overwhelmingly positive reception to Fanchen's rendition of "rush e" ties into this idea. Most are under the impression that him being "so amazing" gives him the right to call other performances mediocre, when he himself is really mediocre when compared to the greatest pianists. This is not to say that performances like fanchen do not deserve praise. I'm glad that his talent is recognized and wish other pianists like him to be appreciated as well. My frustration is more towards the perception of the community as a whole who think performances of pieces like rush e or flight of the bumblebee are the height of piano music. By constructing a mediocre performance of rush e myself in 5 days as an amatuer pianist, when a normal classical piece would take me months, I hope to shed light on how huge the world of piano music truly is.