I'm putting the final touches on a Beethoven Sonata right now for performance, and it made me realize just how much closer to Beethoven I feel after having actually learned his music. I don't tend to listen to much Beethoven and I'm not super familiar with his ouvre, but listening to his other works feels much different now, I feel like I understand it more and understand *him* more despite the fact that we didn't even live in the same era.

I've felt this way with most every composer of the music I've learned. It truly feels like reading diary entries in a way, like I'm getting this insight into their inner machinations that I didn't have before.