There's a bit of stuff in classical music that strikes me as being there so that musicians can show off their speed. It's one of the things that even the lowest

There's a bit of stuff in classical music that strikes me as being there so that musicians can show off their speed. It's one of the things that even the lowest common denominator audience can relate to, so of course this happens! Heh, agreed. Though I think the Rach Prelude was more designed to break piano strings :) (they're chords, some of which are marked 'sffff'... also looking at the sheet music it's actually 8 notes) There seem to be a few etudes like you've described (Liszt comes to mind). I cannot for the life of me figure out what these composers were attempting to teach their students...