Play It Again

<p>In 2010, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the <i>Guardian</i>, set himself an almost impossible task: to learn, in the space of a year, Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 – a piece that inspires dread in many professional pianists. <br><br>His timing could have been better. <br><br>The next twelve months were to witness the Arab Spring, the Japanese tsunami, the English riots, and the <i>Guardian</i>’s breaking of both WikiLeaks and the News of the World hacking scandal. <br><br>In the midst of this he carved out twenty minutes’ practice a day – even if that meant practising in a Libyan hotel in the middle of a revolution as well as gaining insights and advice from an array of legendary pianists, theorists, historians and neuroscientists, and even occasionally from secretaries of state. <br><br>But was he able to play the piece in time?</p> <p>In 2010, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the <i>Guardian</i>, set himself an almost impossible task: to learn, in the space of a year, Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 – a piece that inspires dread in many professional pianists. <br><br>His timing could have been better. <br><br>The next twelve months were to witness the Arab Spring, the Japanese tsunami, the English riots, and the <i>Guardian</i>’s breaking of both WikiLeaks and the News of the World hacking scandal. <br><br>In the midst of this he carved out twenty minutes’ practice a day – even if that meant practising in a Libyan hotel in the middle of a revolution as well as gaining insights and advice from an array of legendary pianists, theorists, historians and neuroscientists, and even occasionally from secretaries of state. <br><br>But was he able to play the piece in time?</p>