SKIDELSKY: CAN ANYONE PLAY A CHOPIN BALLADE?

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 24 JANUARY 2013

An interesting piece by Robert Skideslsky, the biographer of Maynard Keynes, on the nature-versus-nurture debate.  It begins: "The editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, has written a book about how he decided to practice the piano 20 minutes a day. Eighteen months later, he played Chopin’s fearsomely difficult Ballade No. 1 in G Minor. Could anyone have done this? Or did it require special talent?"

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THE PEACE-BRINGING POWER OF MUSIC....

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 20 JANUARY 2013

Liked this comment underneath an extract from the book on the Guardian's book site.

John Gosling

Since the days of the Guardian's shameful hounding of Jonathan Aitken in 1995, I have held a particular prejudice against Alan Rushbridger and have resolutely avoided reading anything he has written since that time. However, as the topic of the present article is rather close to my heart, I decided to give it a read and am now finding my prejudices wilting. In my own case, I gave up piano lessons at age 12, having struggled to scrape the barest of passes at Grade 2, and for most of my life I was of the view that I was neurologically predisposed to fail at any attempt at musicianship. On several occasions since, I attempted to take up the piano again, but no matter how much I practiced, I seemed incapable of improvement. However, at the age of 60, and having bought a piano last year for my 10 year old daughter, I suddenly discovered that age had brought with it a new fluency and coordination in my fingers that, for whatever reason, had previously been missing. Six months further on, I'm getting close to being able to play the Prelude from Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin at full speed - something which previously I would never have dreamed was possible. But like Alan, I have to hold down a full-time job as well and it's taking 3 hours a day practice during weekdays and 9 hours a day at weekends to manage this. Maybe old age brings with it a determination to succeed and an ability to persevere against the odds which we lack when we are younger. So well done Alan - I may be prepared to forgive you for the Aitken affair.

I think Aikten himself "forgave" me some time ago. A few Hay Festivals back the organisers (mischievously?) booked us into the same bed and breakfast together. We'd had no contact since Aitken had been to jail. But we ended up sipping tea in the sunshine making small talk like nothing had happened. And since then he's written a few good pieces on prison and rehabilitation for the paper. 

PLAYING TO THE, ER, WORLD

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 20 JANUARY 2013

I have played the Ballade only twice in public. One, to a small group of teachers and friends just so I had witnesses that I could sort of play it.  And once again at the excellent Chipping Camden literary/music festival because my fellow piano camper, Charlie Bennett (who runs the music festival) asked me. That was pretty frightening. 

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HOW HARD IS THE G MINOR BALLADE?

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 14 JANUARY 2013

How hard is the G Minor Ballade?  A few commenters on the Guardian website took issue with the assertion that it’s “one of the hardest pieces in the repertoire.” Actually those words weren’t mine – they were Murray Perahia’s.  Most of the professional pianists I spoke to confessed they found it extremely challenging. Baremboim used the word "slippery". Emanuel Ax said he'd never played a clean performance of the notorious coda. Ronan O'Hora said “you could line up a lot of concert pianists and ask them which is the piece they would least like to play cold before an audience or on camera, and an awful lot of them would say the G minor Ballade."

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