I have also seen the culture of pianists being used to playing reams and reams of new music, and this being a signal of proficiency more so than amongst other instrumentalists (e.g. violinists or flautists). I think it is probably because the majority of a pianist’s career is spent in accompaniment rather than as a soloist or in an equal ensemble (there are ~no serious piano quartets), and so the quantity of music quickly consumable is a much more competitive asset. When I was at music school, there were professional accompanists and everyone was assigned one, pianists employed simply to go around and accompany all of the students in their performances, so they needed to be able to play a great deal of complicated music very quickly or on-sight.
Personally, my primary goal with sheet music is to get off of it as soon as possible (i.e. learn the piece from memory). It is a qualitative reduction in the number of things my attention is on, and gives me much more cognitive space to focus on how to play the piece rather than what I’m playing next.
I have also seen the culture of pianists being used to playing reams and reams of new music, and this being a signal of proficiency more so than amongst other instrumentalists (e.g. violinists or flautists). I think it is probably because the majority of a pianist’s career is spent in accompaniment rather than as a soloist or in an equal ensemble (there are ~no serious piano quartets), and so the quantity of music quickly consumable is a much more competitive asset. When I was at music school, there were professional accompanists and everyone was assigned one, pianists employed simply to go around and accompany all of the students in their performances, so they needed to be able to play a great deal of complicated music very quickly or on-sight.
Personally, my primary goal with sheet music is to get off of it as soon as possible (i.e. learn the piece from memory). It is a qualitative reduction in the number of things my attention is on, and gives me much more cognitive space to focus on how to play the piece rather than what I’m playing next.