Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger spoke at the Edinburgh Festival yesterday about his attempts to master Chopin’s Ballade No 1, the subject of his memoir Play it Again. His daily escape to the keyboard currently includes Debussy’s Children’s Corner, a six-movement suite, one of which has the non-PC title, Golliwogg’s Cakewalk.
“Playing the piano is my musical refuge from journalism,” said Rusbridger. “It’s an escape. After spending 20 minutes at the piano, I feel a lot better than if I hadn’t. And my mother told me, ‘If you can play music, you’ll always have friends.’”
Rusbridger had good friends in his determination to master the piano. Alfred Brendel, invited to dinner at Rusbridger’s north London home, found imperfections in the Fazioli grand piano in the front room. He sent his technician to sort it out. A few months later Rusbridger met Daniel Barenboim and told him about the Fazioli and Brendel. “A great, great pianist,” said Barenboim of Brendel. “But he f**ks up pianos!”
Rusbridger’s piano playing provides a welcome respite from the tricky legal waters he is currently navigating with American whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Unlike a piano keyboard, the law is not all black and white.
