Latest news with #PaulWittgenstein
CBC
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
One-handed British pianist is carrying forward the legacy of those who came before him
Nicholas McCarthy is often described as the world's only professional one-handed concert pianist. But he wasn't the first, and he has no intention of being the last. "Each century from the 19th century tended to have this kind of one well-known concert pianist who had one hand," McCarthy told As It Happens guest host Megan Williams. "In the 21st century, I find myself being that one-handed pianist who seems to have more prominence. So I feel a lot of responsibility." On Sunday, the British pianist made his debut at The Proms, one of Britain's most prestigious classical music concert series, held annually at London's Royal Albert Hall, and broadcast on BBC. It was a dream come true for McCarthy — and one he says he couldn't have achieved without the thick skin that comes with having a lifelong disability, and a road paved by those who came before him. "I am still on a high. I'm absolutely buzzing," he said. "I would say this is really the pinnacle of my career so far." A 'full-circle moment' For his Proms debut, McCarthy regaled the audience with Maurice Ravel's bravura Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, alongside the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The deceivingly rich piece is probably the most famous left-hand-only piano composition, he says. And it only exist because it was commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, an Austrian-American concert pianist who lost his right arm in the First World War. It was one of several pieces Wittgenstein commissioned from prominent composers as he sought to build his post-war career, while developing novel techniques for one-handed play. "It's really thanks to him that I'm able to have the career that I have today, because I'm able to play these wonderful big famous works," McCarthy said. Piano Concerto for the Left Hand has been performed many times in the festival's 130-year-history, usually by two-handed pianists showing off their skills with their non-dominant hand. But McCarthy is only the second one-handed pianist to perform the piece at The Proms. The last, he says, was Wittgenstein himself in 1951. "It's really a full-circle moment," McCarthy said. Humble roots and a late start McCarthy was born without a right hand, but his disability wasn't the only obstacle on his journey to becoming a professional concert pianist. While most of his industry peers spent their childhoods studying classical music and practicing for hours on end, McCarthy says he spent his youth playing outdoors with his friends and doing regular kid stuff. "We come from a very non-musical family. Just normal pop stuff on the radio, you know, normal, working-class parents," he said. But at the age of 14, McCarthy heard his friend playing a Beethoven composition at school, and his whole life changed. "I just had one of those — it sounds corny — of those kind of Oprah Winfrey moments, you know, these kind of life-changing, lightbulb moments where I was like, wow, this is what I want to do for my career. I want to be a pianist," he said. It didn't even occur to him in that moment that he couldn't do it, he says. "You remember what it was like when you're 14," he said. "Everything's so possible, you know, full of teenage invincibility." But not everyone believed in his dream the way he did. "The early part of my career, for sure, I was being told left, right and centre by very respected people in the industry that I should give up, you know, this wasn't the career for me," he said. "It used to be fuel to my fire, almost, that's what kept me going and kept me focused on what I believed and what I knew I could do, which was obviously proven last night." A vast repertoire of left-hand only music Most piano compositions weren't made with someone like McCarthy in mind, but he didn't have to start from scratch. He says there is a surprisingly vast repertoire of piano music written for the left hand alone — roughly 3,000 solo pieces, and several dozen concertos. "It's all left-handed, and not right-hand alone, which I always find quite an interesting fact," he said. Many were commissioned by Wittgenstein, while others were commissioned or composed by Count Géza Zichy, a Hungarian composer who lost his right arm in a hunting accident in the 1860s. But many more, McCarthy said, were written in the 19th century for two-handed pianists to wow audiences. "Concert pianists would perform a wonderful bravura encore at the end of their amazing recitals," he said. "As a play on irony, they used to kind of say, 'You thought I was good with two hands. Wait till you see what I can do with my weaker hand!'" Now that McCarthy is in the spotlight like Wittgenstein and Zichy before him, he makes a point of regularly commissioning new left-hand pieces to build on the rich repertoire he's benefited so greatly from.
The Guardian
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Cyril Smith, the postwar pianist who played with one hand
An interesting article by Nicholas McCarthy, a left-hand-only pianist, on Paul Wittgenstein (Left turns: How a terrible war injury led to the birth of one-handed piano music, 16 July). Wittgenstein was perhaps one of the first performing pianists using only one hand, but there was a one-handed pianist in Britain in the years after the second world war. Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick became a piano-playing couple in 1941. They performed at the Proms and toured widely. They used all four hands, sometimes on one piano, sometimes on two. They were touring the Soviet Union in 1956 when Cyril had a stroke that paralysed his left arm. Just as Wittgenstein had experienced, Smith and Sellick had music written or arranged for them for the rest of their careers. How do I know this? They came to play at the University of Liverpool in 1962 and I was the student given the task of looking after them and was their MyttonDorking, Surrey Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
ABC News
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
DJ plays the piano with one hand. There's a catalogue of music for one-handed pianists like him
During his early twenties, DJ was working towards his dream of becoming a concert pianist. Things were looking promising, and he was even doing postgraduate studies in Russia, one of the highly regarded locations in the world to train. Then he had a sudden stroke. DJ lost the use of the right side of his body and could no longer play piano. Not only was his dream crushed. It changed his way of relating to the world. "Piano music is important in my life because you don't have to say anything, you express your emotions through your playing," he shares in the new ABC iview series The Piano. It also impacted his mental health. "Being not able to play was very depressing and very boring." But as his journey progressed, DJ had a realisation: What DJ discovered is that there is a rich history of piano music written exclusively for the left hand, thanks to the work of wounded returned servicemen from the First and Second World Wars. He credits these veterans for inspiring him to play the piano again. In 1914, Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein was shot in the elbow and his right arm amputated. Wittgenstein was born into a musical family. In his youth, visitors to the family home included famous composers like Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. The pianist persevered with music after the war, refining his left-hand technique and arranging music for the left hand alone. Determined to continue his career as a performer, Wittgenstein asked the who's who of composers to write pieces for him, including Benjamin Britten, Erich Korngold, and Sergei Prokofiev. His most enduring commission is Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. The piece regularly appears on concert programs by the world's top pianists and even featured in the TV series M*A*S*H. Wittgenstein premiered the concerto with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra on 5 January 1932, even though he caused a bit of friction with Ravel by changing large portions of the work in private performance before the premiere. Creating compelling piano music for five fingers instead of 10 presents challenges for both composers and pianists. Ravel claimed he wanted to create music for one hand which wouldn't restrict technical demands and expressivity. "The fear of difficulty, however, is never as keen as the pleasure of contending with it, and, if possible, of overcoming it," he said leading up to the premiere of the concerto. The piece is notoriously difficult. Early 20th-century concert pianist Alfred Cortot even arranged it for two hands and orchestra, despite Ravel forbidding publication and performance of the arrangement. In ABC iview's The Piano, DJ explains how he translates the music he plays with just five fingers. His thumb gets the main melody, the pinky the bass line, and the three middle fingers get "all the harmonies and subtle colours." Series judge and pianist Judge Harry Connick Jnr explains why this is so exceptional. "He's got his thumb, three middle fingers and his pinky doing three separate voicings …That's unbelievable," he says. Wittgenstein's commissions paved the way for later pianists with the use of one arm, such as German pianist Siegfried Rapp, who lost his right arm in World War II. While there is some piano music composed for the right hand alone, the catalogue is much smaller, with no-one appearing to have advocated as strongly for the repertoire as Wittgenstein. In the 1960s, American concert pianos Leon Fleisher lost functionality in his right hand but continued a successful career as a soloist. He performed much of the music originally commissioned by Wittgenstein and grew the repertoire for the left hand by arranging music himself and commissioning new music. Contemporary concert pianist Nicholas McCarthy is the first left-hand-only pianist to graduate from the Royal College of Music. Born without his right hand, McCarthy also focused on repertoire built by Wittgenstein, and his own arrangements. He was recently a consultant on a project to build a piano exam syllabus of one-handed repertoire for UK-based exam board ABRSM. Pianists like DJ are continuing those traditions today. Being able to play again had a huge impact on his life. Spoiler alert, DJ is one of the performers in The Piano series chosen to perform in a final concert at Sydney's City Recital Hall. "I never thought I would get this opportunity again," he says. His final advice for anyone going through dark times: "Focus on what you love, and your love will save you." Stream The Piano free on ABC iview or watch Sundays at 7:30pm on ABC TV.
