another pianist here said on the subject of bach's b-flat major prelude from book one:

"the only way to play it is pretty much as quickly as humanly possible. they should have competitions for that. where they fill a room with, like, a hundred pianists and it's like a race."

"starting gun and everything," i suggest.

"yeah. wow." he has a way of primarily addressing his shoelaces. "i'd like to see that."

his shoelaces shuffle around in response. i probably say something too, but it's not as important.

i complained to one of my teachers at the beginning of the semester that the tempo she insisted on for the associated fugue felt like a funeral dirge.

"last week, you said it was like a christmas carol." her voice is a small bird watching you curiously from ten meters away.

i'd been insisting on a harpsichord-style articulation of the subject for a long time simply because i liked it, because it just tickled me, though the whole piece was made significantly trickier as a result. everybody asked me about it and i told them, "it establishes the second beat."

which is true but also completely worthless bullshit.