Oh, yeah, totally! I love to play things that are technically challenging and intellectually engaging (big surprise, I'm a brainy player). But the pieces I like to listen to are usually more emotionally impactful (though I do enjoy a good intellectually interesting piece as well). It's just that when I'm playing, I get bored with things if they're not moving at a fast clip, and I've never been able to do that transference thing, where performing a piece of music is to be in the middle of listening to it so the emotional resonance is similar. If I'm performing, I'm thinking. I can't "let go" and just feel it - though I can fake it quite well. If I'm listening, I can *sometimes* let go and just listen, but it's hard. If anything happens along the way that tweaks me (a wrong note, something being out of tune), I'm back in my brain-space and the performance is ruined. It's one of the reasons I actually enjoy music *less* than most people who aren't trained classically. I don't listen to much music, compared to most people I know, and when I find a favorite, I usually just listen to it over and over because a different performance of it will usually throw me out too much to enjoy it.
no subject