CULTURE / Books

A newspaper editor's year to master Chopin's First Ballade

Hard work: A bronze statue by Polish sculptor Karol Badyna of composer Frederic Chopin, whose First Ballade the editor of the Guardian sets out to play. | BLOOMBERG

By Iain Burnside
The Observer

Mar 3, 2013

PLAY IT AGAIN, by Alan Rusbridger. Jonathan Cape, 2013, 416 pp., £18.99 (hardcover)

In middle age, some men take up marathon running. Others climb the Matterhorn or buy a red sports car. Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, decides to master Frédéric Chopin's First Ballade, Op. 23.

Following an epiphany during a French summer course, Rusbridger gives himself a year to learn this fiercely demanding work, later extending his self-imposed deadline when at various points Julian Assange and the families Gadhafi and Murdoch eat into his practice schedule.

A newspaper editor's year to master Chopin's First Ballade

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