Your quote tags...they burn.
So you haven't any dedication, but you've managed to achieve good enough quality for large audiences? Madam, I fear I must charge you with INTJness. Your Pness has hardened and dropped off.
I agree, it's intensely private. I would describe my approach to it as similar to Chopin's (death if you come too close). Actually, a lot of the time I like to ruin emotionally powerful pieces by syncopating the different lines and alternating entirely inappropriate speed and dynamics. This is often the only way I dare to approach them, for fear of being overwhelmed. [Relevant: Today, someone told me they love and adore me, and I had to run off and hide after that. Subsequently, I refused to speak to them without a pillow in between us. I managed not to impale them on the bedpost only by loudly imagining the Rach 2 2nd movement theme as techno.] [That last bit isn't, strictly speaking, true. I managed to get most of the blood off but it still looks a little suspicious.]
I agree as well about it being necessary to have confidence in your ability, especially your technical ability (so often overlooked even though it's essentially the vessel for musicality). I don't think that's my problem - as demonstrated above I have issues with intense emotions - but it would definitely ease things.
No wrong ideas, friend! I almost had to consider being disgusted by the Cannon on D comment though. I feel I must refute your charge of INTJness, however. My ex-boyfriend of 7 years was well as a good friend of my mine are both INTJs and I must insist that I don't fit that particular style of freak. My dedication to the piano has a great deal to do with conditioning - i.e. being pushed by my parents and my teacher to practice every single day for years, forced recitals and such. I too find long periods of practing to be suffocating. Hence, my day job and general disregard for going all the way professionally. If left to my own devices I'm a terrible procrastinator. Oh and by large crowd I mean less than 700 people. I haven't played for any crowd really for some years now.
In the interest of not boring other people on this thread here is a VERY brief list of top favorite compositions in the classical arena. I also have a deep love for American primative, early folk, and old timey music (ie Gillian Welch, Townes Van Zandt, Old Crow Medicine Show).
Liszt:
La Camapanella
Totentanz (Valentina Lisista on You Tube has a great video)
Grand Galop Chromatique
Chopin:
Etude Op 25 No 11 (Winter Wind)
Etude Op 25 No 12 (the Ocean Etude)
Plus the Etudes ones you listed up above.
Fantasie Impromptu - the rare version that Chopin originally wrote. The Impromptu that currently in circulation was actually reworked by a friend of his after his death but there are a few precious recordings of the original.
Raindrop Prelude
Brahms:
His Hungarian Folk Dances - especially no. 5
Rachmaninov
Prelude in C sharp Minor
Prelude in G sharp Minor
9 Etudes-tableaux Op 33 No 5 and 9, Op 39 No 6
Piano Sonata No 1
Ravel
Gaspard de la Nuit Ondine
Tchaikovsky
Pas de Deux from the Nutcracker - piano solo