But not too much more speed. Learning involves the formation of networks in the brain which organise, control and use our knowledge, skills and understanding in more ways than we can fully understand. Memory is crucial, and not only what is formally recognised as memory. It is behind what the Germans call Fingerspitzengefuhl, which depends on such intimate knowledge of something that the finest adjustments can be made so quickly that they appear instinctive, though they are in fact second nature rather than first.
I suspect that talent in music is used to refer to the ability to develop such control very quickly, and I. alas, am rather slow. I earn my living as a linguist and literacy teacher, and this slowness, according to my piano teacher, Patrick Hemmerle, has helped me to understand other people's problems, and so develop solutions to them. I learned French slowly too, having to take the book home and study each day over the Easter holidays in order to get to first base in the language. I had similar patterns of learning with German and Spanish, though with similar results. Definitely, and with perhaps too much regret, the tortoise rather than the hare.
The Siloti arrangment of Bach's B minor prelude (here by Emil Gilels) is a case in point. It has variations on chords in the left hand that usually involve a stretch, as the chords either don't begin with their root note, or have an extension at the top beyond the octave. So we need to know the whole chord and the notes in it in order to understand what we are trying to do. Then there is usually just one step change between phrases, but this entails another change in a recurring pattern in the right hand. Why does one pattern fit and another not? Patrick then says, as always perfectly correctly, that I need to anticipate these changes, though I have started to do this. We can only anticipate something if we know it's coming, or likely to come. So, even more thorough knowledge - we need to know what we are doing, what we are about to do, and how to move from one to the other.
(He did say, though, on my second lesson, that my right hand phrasing was "très bien", which is about the highest praise given in French academic circles. This has taken a lot of work to relax the hand, which was tense because I was worried about hitting wrong notes. It was knowing exactly what the right notes were and being able to hit them that removed the tension. This took time. My wonderful French teacher, Frances Holmes, told me that he had never been able to lose the tension in his hands, despite reaching a high level on the piano. "It's in my character," he said, and his character was one of extreme conscientiousness and meticulousness.)
In other words, for me to play anything, I have to know it, as the French say, like the inside of my pocket. So, I suspect, does everyone else. It's the path to this knowledge that causes the problem. The Siloti doesn't sound too bad, though. I wonder if Mr Gilels takes it just a shade more quickly than I'd like to...?