GRE Reading Comprehension
Home > GRE Test > GRE Reading Comprehension Questions
Next steps
- Use your browser's back button to return to your test results.
- Do more GRE Reading Comprehension Questions.
Source: magoosh reading medium
Chopin the pianist has been greatly overshadowed by Chopin the composer. When Chopin the pianist is mentioned, it is his dreamy gaze and supple wrists (as well as countless female admirers gathered around the piano returning that same dreamy stare). But Chopin was a formidable pianist in his own right: after all, he was able to play, from start to finish, all twenty-four of his etudes, a set of pieces so demanding that even today's great pianists feel taxed after performing them. Two things perhaps account for this oversight: for one, any pianist for whom no extant recordings exist is likely not to weather time well. Secondly, Chopin's coeval and friend, Franz Liszt, was of such legendary prowess that Chopin himself wished he could play his own etudes the way Liszt did. Nevertheless, Chopin deserves to be remembered not just as a composer of challenging pieces but as a pianist capable of executing, with panache, these very pieces.
Question List: 1 2
Which of the following, if true, would cast the most doubt on the author's contention regarding Chopin the pianist?
- A Chopin rarely, if ever, played the piano works of other composers.
- B Apart from a cello concerto and a few other works, Chopin composed mainly for the piano.
- C Chopin seldom performed his etudes in concerts, preferring to play in front of a small group.
- D Not all of Chopin's compositions are as difficult to execute as his etudes.
- E Chopin, himself, acknowledged that he was primarily a composer, and would have composed even more difficult pieces had he the ability to play them.