Probably nobody knows this about me but this is my most favorite ever piano transcription. I have to call it that because it's transcribed from Beethoven's 7th Symphony (Op. 92), 2nd movement, by the world's first legitimate Rock Star - Franz Liszt. He really was.

This is not my most favorite performance of the song. However, I chose this because I always thought it was a duet but now I see how you might be able to reproduce all 3 or 4 layers all at once with only 2 human hands. It looks to me like this song requires tremendous effort and concentration. I should also try to find this song performed "live" by some other virtuoso. Like Glenn Gould...

Found it! Not live. But close enough.

Here's a live one played by some cowboy name Cyprien Katsaris (too lazy to grab a link. Google it.) Now you really get the full frontal experience of how exactly difficult this is to play. Enjoy the next 8 minutes and 24 seconds. (He kind of rushes though, no?) By the way, during EVERY live performance, there's always some asshole coughing, right? Always. The coughing guy at the beginning of this video sounds like he's got consumption or maybe the dreaded croup. They really tear that guy a new one in the comments.

Anyway... Why do I love this so very much? Easy. I used it to put my children to sleep when they were small babies. In particular I used it on the youngest the most because she both hated to sleep and was only satisfied to be carried so long as I was (exhausted and) upright and walking... But if I played this song, she would very often relax and finally go to sleep. The particular version I played for those session came from this mix of relaxing piano tunes. Enjoy the next 7 hours that mix. Or just skip to 63:15.

That's the speed it's supposed to be played at. Take it easy, everybody. Go slow. This isn't the late 90s Smashing Pumpkins.

The youngest really liked the hypnotic animations and I loved this transcription so much that I wrote a formal email to Andrew Holdsworth asking him if I could somehow purchase the sheet music for his version. To my horror, he kindly replied and responded that there was no sheet much. He said that he sort of just made it up as he went while he was recording that particular session. I was both envious and heartbroken all at the same time. So it goes.

When I die -- and take it straight from the ailing horse's mouth, it's not going to be too much longer now (which is why I SHOULD be writing here much more often, right?), this is the song that I want them to play at my funeral. If only I had a funeral. Which I probably won't. But if I did, they should hire old Andrew and ask him to take one last kick at the old cat, as they say, bang it out one more time for good ol' me. Because this song is tremendous. Not as triumphant a symphony as the glorious 9th (as a whole). But a tremendous single movement nonetheless.