One day I was trying to pick out a Mozart sonata on the piano. Like all poor pianists, I unconsciously emphasized the “sentiment” as I played. All at once, my father interrupted me.
“Whose music is that?”
“Mozart.”
“What a relief. I was afraid for a minute it was that imbecile Beethoven.” And, as I expressed my surprise at his severity, he went on: “Beethoven is positively indecent, the way he tells about himself. He doesn’t spare us either the pain in his heart or in his stomach. I have often wished I could say to him: what’s it to me if you’re deaf?”
Jean Renoir, Renoir: My Father