Playing someone else's music is a doubly difficult enterprise. First, it is difficult to discern from the printed page what sounds the composer had in mind. Theoretical analysis does not help this endeavor one bit; rather it tends to obscure it.
Second, one has to account for one's own internal life of tone and of timing. For the fast-paced, like myself, Adagio might as well read Impossible. For the tone sensitive, like myself, certain tonalities, like A major, should be called Your Teeth will Hurt When You Hear This.
I have begun teaching people how to read sonatas based on their internal organization, rather than on the sonata as a thing with an existence independent of their personal experience. It makes all the difference. At first reading I see the eyes light up: "I get it!"
