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Originally Posted by vienna
Never even remotely cosidered you as any form of loudmouth. 
You are correct about SMEs and the arts. If you ever want an amusing read, try "Twilight of the Gods: The Music of the Beatles" by Wilfred Mellerz. The book (actually more like a booklet) is about 40 years old and written from a formal musicology view. The depictions of the Beatles music and it "mechanics" is amusing when you consider none of the Beatles could read or write musical notation and had no formal education in music theory. I'm willing to bet John never turned to Paul and said, "Hey, Paul let's revert to the Mixolydian on this number."...
I'm a firm Beethoven admirer myself. Rachmaninoff seems, to me at least, to be more famed for his technical skill and somewhat "chessey" emotional romanticism...
An interesting series of pieces is the Listz transcriptions of all nine of the Beethoven symphonies. Listz, who deeply admired Beethoven, made transcriptions, for solo piano, of the symphonies and, since Listz was an exceptional technical pianist who liked to show off, he imbued the transcriptions with many challenges for other players. One of the side benefits of the transcriptions is the abiltity to hear the symphonies in a form very akin to how they were originally composed. Beethoven composed at the piano and these "stripped down" versions allow one to hear the "nuts and bolts" that went into the building of the final full-form symphonies. There are a few recordings available of the Listz transcriptions; not many pianists are willing or capable of properly executing the pieces. Glenn Gould recorded one of the transcriptions (the 6th, IIRC)...
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I appreciate that. Thank you.
There is a lot of over thinking that occurs in my profession. I am usually inclined to recall Freud's quote about a cigar just being a cigar. If only musicologists could just let things be more often.
I know the Gould recording that you are talking about. I do not own a personal copy, which says something because my music library is, as you could imagine, quite extensive. The university I work for does. It is fantastic.