But more important; whom were you expecting them to whip?
The pianist? (
Get started already!)
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Two more stupidities:
1) I used to think that it was a shame that the classical repertoire was so very small compared to popular music. I thought there were just a handful of composers (Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and a few others) who had composed just a handful of compositions each.

2) I tried to get a friend of mine into classical music (the only 'classical' he'd listened to was Vanessa-Mae's rendition of Toccata and Fugue and some electronic-classical-fusion-thing of one of Vivaldi's Four Seasons [Spring or Autumn, can't remember which]).
Anyway, I was making him listen to the fourth movement of Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony, a movement that I find very easily likeable because of its sheer energy. At the end of it, this conversation ensued:
Friend: That sounds nice! Is that the original recording?
Me: What do you mean?
Friend: You know, the original.
Me: Huh?
Friend: You know, man, when this was composed, was it recorded back then?
Me: (Trying to keep a straight face.)
Dude, this was composed more than 100 years ago. They couldn't record it back then.
Friend: Oh.