Amateur pianist (and Guardian editor) Alan Rusbridger gave up the instrument as a teenager, but took it up again decades later – and vowed to learn how to play Chopin's first Ballade, one of the most notoriously difficult pieces in the repertoire. You can read extracts from his new book Play It Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible (Jonathan Cape) in the Review section of the Guardian on Saturday 12 January and in G2 on Monday 14 January