ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 30 JANUARY 2013
Play it Again only work as a book if you believe a) the G Minor Ballade is really quite hard, and b) I was really quite a bad pianist. "Good pianist tackles easy piece" is not such an interesting idea.
Judge for yourself from the book - or from this little film - how hard you think the piece is. Anything Murray Perahia, Emanuel Ax and Noriko Ogawa have night sweats about is hard enough for me.
But was I any good to start with?
I gave up in my teens after scraping through Grade 6 with 103 points (pass = 100).
And here's the proof - the certificate, complete with scathing remarks from the poor examiner who had to tolerate my woeful playing.
Scales? " Very poor...few correct notes"
Pieces? "Dull and the notes not safe"
Overall? "Dull and unterprising"
No wonder I gave up. It was 25 years before I summoned up the will to try again.
And, Examiner number A 36, whoever you were.... is it too late to apologise?