As follow-up to a Saturday Special from a couple of weeks ago, here's a Benjamin Zander video from the TED Conference (thanks VJ for the suggestion). In it, he shares a Chopin prelude (Op. 28: Prelude No. 4 in E Minor) as a way to open ourselves to an appreciation of classical music and its emotional possibilities.
A quick personal note about this portion of his presentation: at the 2001 Transformation Conference I produced, my wife was sitting in the front row for Zander's performance since she'd heard me talk so much about him. As he came down off stage at the prelude's conclusion, he went right toward Cyndi and kissed her on the head. With the emotion of the moment and the conference near its completion, I started crying, figuring Cyndi must have been doing the same to prompt Zander to approach her.
Asking her about it later, she told me, "No, I wasn't crying. I shouted, 'Bravo!'" Zander IS, after all, a showman. I just teared up thinking back on the story, so here's an important safety tip: have a Kleenex handy before you start watching!
