As satisfied as I have been with the Chopin year this year, a celebration of 200 years of one of my favorite composer’s life, I now think back to a time when I had contemplated quitting piano entirely.

A concert pianist is a rare specimen, bred out of a panoply of nerves, dedication, auspicious encounters and fatigue. There are so many mood swings born out of hundreds of thousands of moods themselves, it is impossible to predict what one will feel like 2 minutes before showtime. Concert pianists could ideally just live off of pills and then leave the music-making to some higher power. How can one avenge the sanitized marketplace needs of a perfect recording, note-perfect performances and not be allowed to satisfy an ephemeral whim of spontaneous outrage and fantasy?