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Straits Times
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
One-handed pianist Nicholas McCarthy the star name for Proms classical concert
COLCHESTER, England – When Nicholas McCarthy was 15, he telephoned a local music school to ask about taking piano lessons and mentioned that he was disabled, having been born without a right hand. The school principal did not take the news well. 'How will you even play scales?' McCarthy recalled her saying dismissively before hanging up. Now, some 20 years later, he is set to prove anyone who doubted him wrong – and in a high-profile way. At the Royal Albert Hall in London on July 20, McCarthy was the star name for a concert at the Proms, Britain's most prominent classical music series. In front of thousands of concertgoers in the hall, as well as a live TV audience, the 36-year-old performed French composer Maurice Ravel's bravura Piano Concerto For The Left Hand, using the grand piano's sustain pedal to elongate the bass notes while his hand leapt around the keyboard. 'Ravel's really created an aural illusion,' McCarthy said. 'Everyone might be thinking, 'I'm seeing only five fingers playing, but I'm hearing so many hands.'' During an earlier interview at his home near London, he said he was both nervous and excited about the gig. Many piano stars, including American Yuja Wang, have used the Ravel concerto as a showpiece, and he did not want anyone to dismiss him as a diversity hire. 'I'd very much like, and expect, to be judged just the same as everyone else,' he added. For an instrument on which the performer's left hand often takes a subordinate role to the right, there is still a vast repertoire for the left hand alone: more than 3,000 pieces, including some 30 concertos. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore S'pore's domestic recycling rate drops to all time low of 11% Singapore HDB launches 10,209 BTO and balance flats, as priority scheme for singles kick in Business Singapore's digital banks finding their niche in areas like SMEs as they narrow losses in 2024 Asia Japan Prime Minister Ishiba to resign by August, Mainichi newspaper reports World Trump says US will charge 19% tariff on goods from Philippines, down from 20% Singapore Two found dead after fire in Toa Payoh flat Singapore 2 foreigners arrested for shop theft at Changi Airport Singapore Ports and planes: The 2 Singapore firms helping to keep the world moving In the 19th century, virtuoso pianists, including Italian composer Adolfo Fumagalli, came up with left-handed works to wow audiences during encores. 'They were saying, 'You think I'm good with two hands? Wait until you see what I can do with only my weaker one,'' McCarthy said. Around the same time, a disabled pianist was also trying to develop a one-handed repertoire. Geza Zichy, a Hungarian who had lost his right arm in a hunting accident as a teenager, transcribed pieces by his friend and fellow Hungarian Franz Liszt, as well as German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and others. The most important figure in the repertoire's development was Paul Wittgenstein, a promising Austrian pianist who fought with the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I alongside his brother Ludwig, the future philosopher. Paul Wittgenstein was shot in battle, and woke up in a hospital to learn that doctors had amputated his right arm. Wittgenstein said later in interviews that he had never contemplated giving up music, and recalled drawing a charcoal keyboard on a crate when he was sent to a Siberian prisoner-of-war camp so that he could practise one-handed. In the decades after his release in a prisoner exchange, Wittgenstein used his family's wealth to commission composers including Ravel, German composers Paul Hindemith and Richard Strauss, and Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. McCarthy said that Wittgenstein, who performed the Ravel concerto at the Proms in 1932 and again in 1951, was his hero. 'I was born with one hand, and that was hard enough,' McCarthy said. 'But to have had that hand and lost it,' he added was 'mind-blowing'. Despite his admirable traits, Wittgenstein was a difficult character. He liked his music traditional and lyrical, and refused to play any commissions he found overly complicated or avant-garde, including the Hindemith, which was not premiered until 2004, decades after Wittgenstein's death. Wittgenstein also altered works to his taste, including the Ravel concerto, which fractured the pair's relationship. McCarthy's journey to the Proms began late for a pianist. As a boy, he did not play instruments at all, and listened mainly to pop music like British girl group Spice Girls. That changed when, aged 14, he went to a school assembly and heard a friend play Ludwig van Beethoven's epic Waldstein Sonata. He was transfixed. 'It sounds corny,' McCarthy said, 'but it was like a life-changing Oprah Winfrey moment. Just, 'Wow. This is what I'm going to do for my job.'' The idea that having only one hand might hold him back did not cross his mind, he recalled. 'It was teenage invincibility. At 14, you think it's so easy to become an astronaut, an Olympian, a gold medallist. So, it's also easy to become a one-handed pianist.' He asked his parents to buy him a piano, but instead they got him a cheap electronic keyboard, on which he taught himself. McCarthy progressed rapidly, and his parents hired a teacher after they heard him playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata in another room and thought the sound was coming from a radio. He went on to win a place at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, then the Royal College of Music, where he became the institution's first one-handed piano graduate. In the early years of his professional career, he often had to 'stand and smile' while two-handed stars won engagements to perform left-handed pieces over him. 'I love hearing other pianists play the repertoire,' McCarthy said. 'But at the same time, you're sidelined.' It was particularly galling if orchestras were trumpeting their work to promote diversity and ignoring him at the same time, he added. Things started changing in 2024 when he made his solo debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, an esteemed London venue, and began playing with top British orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic. Now, McCarthy said, he is commissioning composers to add to the one-handed repertoire, just as Wittgenstein once did. He said he was also working with Britain's major piano examination board to develop a grading system for disabled pianists. In his sunlit home studio after the interview, McCarthy sat on a piano stool at his instrument with his belly button lined up an octave above middle C. That position is to the right of where a two-handed player would sit, but McCarthy said it allowed him to glide more easily along the keyboard. He began playing a section of the Ravel concerto that featured what he described as a 'watery' melody. His hand flowed up and down the keys, drawing out a sparkling tone. Whenever McCarthy's hand climbed to trill the piano's highest keys, his left leg shot outwards to keep him balanced. He would then swing upright, then lean left so that his little finger could strike a deep bass note that echoed in the room. The sound was lush and full, and McCarthy brought out the shifting moods in Ravel's music, from heartbreaking to comic to romantic. Even standing just metres away, it was hard to believe McCarthy was producing all that emotion, all that sound, with just one hand. NYTIMES
Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Alexandre Kantorow — from damp Olympic hero to Proms piano star
A solitary pianist sits at a Steinway piano on a bridge in Paris, ready to play to a global audience of millions watching the Olympics opening ceremony. It's pouring with rain but even a deluge can't stop Ravel's Jeux d'eau (Fountains, aptly) rippling from Alexandre Kantorow's fingers. 'No one else was allowed on the bridge, not even security. I had to wait 20 minutes in the rain without playing, just looking at all the boats passing,' he says, recalling last summer. 'I felt so alone in Paris, which was absolutely magical.' As we talk over a post-concert beer in Freiburg, Germany, I'm swept up by this rose-tinted version of events, but I can't help wondering, more prosaically, what happened to the piano. 'My contract is terrible — I still can't talk about the piano and how they made it,' he says. 'But let's say they prepared for the rain, so there was no destruction of a piano.' The 28-year-old French pianist reached a new level of fame after his rain-drenched Ravel, but he was already hot property in the piano world. Dubbed 'Liszt reincarnated' for his impassioned performances, in 2019 Kantorow became the first French musician to win the Tchaikovsky Competition — a musical equivalent of the Olympics. He remembers it both as 'one of the highlights of stress' in his life and as a place where he reached a musical paradise. 'It's a memory of what's it like to only have music in your mind,' he explains — a rarefied state he's dedicated his life to achieving. His supercharged touring career began the moment he won. 'You've got no time,' he says. 'I didn't even go home, and they had already booked concerts.' When I first heard Kantorow play live at a sold-out solo recital in London a few years ago, I was bowled over by his virtuosity and the resonant sound he conjures from the piano. (He attributes this to the Russian-French teacher Rena Shereshevskaya, who taught him the tricks of 'the long sound'.) His star has continued to rise and he recently won the $300,000 Gilmore Artist Award (he's using the money to build a studio in Paris). After an impressive Proms debut in 2023 playing Beethoven, Kantorow returns to the Royal Albert Hall this summer with Saint-Saëns' Fifth Piano Concerto, an entertaining piece nicknamed 'The Egyptian' (the composer was in the country when he composed it). 'It's one of the important French concertos that's not by Ravel. It's full of intensity and joy, and it makes for one of the most pleasing pieces of music, honestly, that we get on the piano,' Kantorow says, laughing as he splutters over a wasabi snack. 'Even in France, there was for a long time a sort of contempt for Saint-Saëns because he can go over the edge into 'easy' or over-sugary music. But he was incredibly creative, and there's always a spirit of discovery [in his music].' In an age when even purist classical pianists such as Vikingur Olafsson dabble with soothing albums of 'reworks', tapping into the popularity of 'relaxing' and 'chillout' piano playlists, Kantorow has rooted himself firmly in the Romantic era. His playing delivers big emotions and dramatic contrasts. ('I get very hot-headed,' he says. 'I wish I could have more distance.') He's been immersed in Brahms, Liszt and Saint-Saëns, is filling in repertoire gaps by learning Rachmaninov's Second and Prokofiev's Third concertos, and has a new love: the music of Nikolai Medtner, whom he calls 'the Chopin of the 20th century'. What does Kantorow think the appeal of this music is today? 'Melodies — I think that's very important for people. Melody is a big part of the 19th century,' he says without hesitation. 'And the best Romantic music carries a feeling of a universal journey that everyone will understand.' • RPO/Petrenko review — Alexandre Kantorow delights at the Proms That's certainly true of the darkness-to-light trajectory of Brahms's First Piano Concerto, which I've just heard Kantorow play in a free concert packed with schoolchildren and students. He's given a standing ovation and a single red rose, and when I meet him at the stage door afterwards, the fans are waiting. 'Wunderbar,' exclaims one starstruck woman, while a group of teenage girls gather round for a photo. 'Brahms is not going to work on every kid,' he replies, when I suggest that this serious, hour-long concerto is, much as I love it, an unexpected choice to introduce classical music to a new generation. 'Still,' he adds, 'it's a joy that a guy from the 19th century who wasn't the kind of person you'd probably have a good dinner with, had such an interior world that even today we cling to him.' My impression is that the past is as alive to Kantorow as the present. When he went to Moscow for the Tchaikovsky Competition, he says his head was filled with the ghosts of Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky. His fantasy dinner guests would be Liszt, George Sand and Berlioz. He's less interested in staying in touch with the modern world. Not only does Kantorow avoid all social media but he is also 'extremely bad' at answering phone calls and texts. He has sacrificed time with people, he says, for this life of music, and shies away from a question about whether he is in a relationship. 'I'm afraid that you can very quickly become a sort of grown-up child,' he confesses. 'I'm very lucky to do these concerts, but you are not very autonomous. There are always people to bring you to places, who know where you're going. Musical life is advancing and the rest is not. I'm really struggling with that and trying to be sure that's not the case.' Kantorow grew up in a family of musicians. His mother, Kathryn Dean, is a British violinist. 'I love Marmite.' Kantorow smiles. 'Christmas cake is a big tradition in the family, scrambled eggs in the morning. There's a big part of me that feels connected to Britain.' His French father, the violinist and conductor Jean-Jacques Kantorow, opened doors for him into the professional musical world. While Alexandre was still a teenager, they recorded two albums together for BIS, the small Swedish label that's since become part of Apple's Platoon and for which Kantorow still records. 'It was a privilege. He gave me a big chance, but he waited to be sure it wouldn't backfire — you need enough weight on your own to exist outside of your name,' Kantorow says. • Alexandre Kantorow review — intense doesn't even begin to describe this piano phenomenon He also made the most of his big competition break. The Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, who was chair of the jury, whisked Kantorow and the other finalists off into a whirlwind of concerts. 'He wanted new repertoire and quickly, with no time to rehearse because he would arrive late, having already done an opera,' Kantorow says. 'This process of being immediately on the spot and having to react was the best school.' Since then, Gergiev has become persona non grata in the West, barred for his close ties to Putin and refusal to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He is making his controversial return to Europe, conducting in Italy in a concert mooted for the end of July. 'I heard also Spain, maybe he was trying to …' Kantorow adds, trailing off. Should he be allowed back? 'My truthful wish I have in my heart is I wish to play again with him because he's one of the great artists of today,' he says. 'But I get it, honestly, I get it. From the point of view of Ukraine, I get it.' While he believes artists can't hide and say they're apolitical ('everything you say or stand for has meaning'), he doesn't feel he yet has a full enough knowledge of politics to use his platform in the way that, say, the pianist Igor Levit has done. Nor does he feel under pressure to modernise the concert format. 'Honestly, the more I look at it, the more I feel that's also the joy of classical music. It's a place you go to if you're a bit overwhelmed or tired from the modern world,' he says. 'I think more and more it will be a sort of refuge for people.' Once again, the world disappears, and Kantorow is absorbed by Kantorow plays at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on Jul 25, live on Radio 3/BBC Sounds, His album of Brahms and Schubert is out on BIS
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Left turns: How a terrible war injury led to the birth of one-handed piano music
I love talking to people about piano music written for the left hand. It's a corner of the repertoire that's often seen as a mysterious niche – yet it comprises a handful of hidden gems for solo piano and a few celebrated concertos too. With most people, the conversation quickly turns to Ravel's legendary Piano Concerto for the Left Hand (1929-30). This masterwork, a favourite among pianists, has been performed by some of the world's greatest keyboard titans and – as a pianist born without my right hand – holds a special place in my own output. But there are a great deal more pieces for the left hand out there. The story begins in the early 19th century when concert pianists were cultural superstars. Liszt, for instance, packed out European concert halls in the same way that a modern day icon such as Taylor Swift sells out stadiums in minutes. These virtuosos enthralled their audiences with their technical brilliance and dramatic showmanship. And they often added an encore designed to astonish – such as performing dazzling feats of pyrotechnics using only their left hand. Using the so-called 'weaker' hand to deliver a bravura display was irresistible to concertgoers, and the spectacle would leave them in awe. The trick lay in the aural illusion: left-hand works often create the impression of two or even three hands playing simultaneously, deceiving even the savviest listeners. Though the left hand tends to be weaker, its physiology gives it an advantage. In standard two-handed piano repertoire the melody line is mostly projected in the right hand by the little finger, the weakest of the fingers. But in left-hand repertoire the melody line is projected by the thumb, the strongest digit, giving it greater clarity. This is why there are more than 3,000 works for left hand alone, yet only a few for the right hand. Another important element in the left-hand pianist's toolkit is the sustain pedal. This allows bass notes to remain present in the texture creating a fuller sound, similar to that which two hands can achieve. The development of serious left-hand repertoire beyond encore and novelty pieces, give or take a few real left-hand gems, did not occur until the 20th century, in the aftermath of the first world war. At the centre of this evolution was Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961) whose story would forever alter the course of left-hand-alone music. A member of the prominent Viennese Wittgenstein family, Paul was the son of a wealthy steel magnate and the brother of renowned philosopher Ludwig. The family was deeply embedded in European high society, with close connections to some of the greatest names in art, music and culture. Paul was a gifted pianist who made his concert debut in 1913. But the outbreak of war would soon change his life for ever. Having enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian army, Wittgenstein was seriously injured fighting the Russian army in the Battle of Galicia, losing his right arm. This was tragically a common wartime injury: right-handed soldiers often suffered damage to their dominant limb during combat. Taken prisoner after the battle, Wittgenstein was moved to a Siberian camp. Here he etched out the lines of a piano keyboard in charcoal on the base of an upturned wooden crate, spending several hours a day hammering the phantom keys with his remaining hand. A visiting dignitary, witnessing this poignant and unusual sight, arranged for him to be transferred to a camp where there was an upright piano. Wittgenstein set to work figuring out how to play the pieces he adored – but with his left hand alone. Repatriated to Vienna in 1915, Wittgenstein faced the monumental challenge of reinventing himself as a one-handed pianist. With steely determination (and his family's immense wealth and elite connections), he set out to build a career. He commissioned some of the most celebrated composers of the era to write works for him. These included concertos by Prokofiev, Strauss, Britten, Korngold and Hindemith. Wittgenstein did not perform every piece he commissioned. He told Prokofiev that he did not understand his 4th Piano Concerto: 'The inner logic of the work is not clear to me, and, of course I can't play it until it is.' He quarrelled with other composers over changes he demanded to their scores. Among the works he commissioned was Ravel's aforementioned Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. Yet even that iconic work was not scandal-free: Wittgenstein made changes to the score for the premiere. Ravel was incensed, and the pair only reconciled after Wittgenstein agreed to perform it as originally written. The concerto is a triumph of ingenuity and artistry. Though it was composed at around the same time as Ravel's other Piano Concerto, for two hands, the works are poles apart – each a unique testament to the composer's mastery of orchestration and piano writing. I vividly remember hearing it for the first time as a 15-year-old. Its opening captivated me immediately: an ominous visceral rumble from the orchestra that gradually unfolds into a majestic theme, rising through the low growl of the instruments. All the while the pianist sits in suspense waiting for their dramatic entrance. The attention is electric, and ice-cold nerves are required from the soloist as they prepare for their moment of brilliance. Throughout his life Ravel was inspired by the play of water. Jeux d'eau (Water Games, 1901), and Ondine (the water nymph) from Gaspard de la Nuit (1908) convey this beautifully. Yet, for me, his most water-like musical achievement comes in the left-hand concerto's breathtaking extended cadenza, heard towards the end of the work. Here the piano becomes a shimmering cascade, rippling and flowing with crystalline beauty before building to a powerful conclusion. Specialising in this extraordinary repertoire is a privilege, a responsibility and, at times, a real challenge. If my forthcoming Proms performance of the Ravel whets your appetite to hear more, I recommend the Britten Diversions for Piano Left Hand and Orchestra as well as Martinu's Concertino (Divertimento), a lovely little gem of a work for chamber orchestra and piano left hand. And I confess I can't agree with Wittgenstein about the work's inner logic – I'll be performing Prokofiev's 4th Piano Concerto next year, and will also soon be adding Korngold's glorious Piano Concerto for Left Hand to my repertoire. There are still preconceptions around disability and a career in music. As one of just a few classical soloists with a physical disability, I've had to be patient and resilient and to develop a thicker skin simply because I don't fit into the correct box. But I hope I can inspire the next generation of pianists to explore this remarkable music. Just as Wittgenstein blazed a trail for me, I aspire to light the way for others, ensuring that the legacy of left-hand-alone music continues to thrive. Nicholas McCarthy performs Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand at the Proms on 20 July. Listen live on BBC Radio 3 or on demand until 12 October. This is an edited version of an essay that is in the BBC 2025 Proms Guide
The Guardian
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Left turns: How a terrible war injury led to the birth of one-handed piano music
I love talking to people about piano music written for the left hand. It's a corner of the repertoire that's often seen as a mysterious niche – yet it comprises a handful of hidden gems for solo piano and a few celebrated concertos too. With most people, the conversation quickly turns to Ravel's legendary Piano Concerto for the Left Hand (1929-30). This masterwork, a favourite among pianists, has been performed by some of the world's greatest keyboard titans and – as a pianist born without my right hand – holds a special place in my own output. But there are a great deal more pieces for the left hand out there. The story begins in the early 19th century when concert pianists were cultural superstars. Liszt, for instance, packed out European concert halls in the same way that a modern day icon such as Taylor Swift sells out stadiums in minutes. These virtuosos enthralled their audiences with their technical brilliance and dramatic showmanship. And they often added an encore designed to astonish – such as performing dazzling feats of pyrotechnics using only their left hand. Using the so-called 'weaker' hand to deliver a bravura display was irresistible to concertgoers, and the spectacle would leave them in awe. The trick lay in the aural illusion: left-hand works often create the impression of two or even three hands playing simultaneously, deceiving even the savviest listeners. Though the left hand tends to be weaker, its physiology gives it an advantage. In standard two-handed piano repertoire the melody line is mostly projected in the right hand by the little finger, the weakest of the fingers. But in left-hand repertoire the melody line is projected by the thumb, the strongest digit, giving it greater clarity. This is why there are more than 3,000 works for left hand alone, yet only a few for the right hand. Another important element in the left-hand pianist's toolkit is the sustain pedal. This allows bass notes to remain present in the texture creating a fuller sound, similar to that which two hands can achieve. The development of serious left-hand repertoire beyond encore and novelty pieces, give or take a few real left-hand gems, did not occur until the 20th century, in the aftermath of the first world war. At the centre of this evolution was Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961) whose story would forever alter the course of left-hand-alone music. A member of the prominent Viennese Wittgenstein family, Paul was the son of a wealthy steel magnate and the brother of renowned philosopher Ludwig. The family was deeply embedded in European high society, with close connections to some of the greatest names in art, music and culture. Paul was a gifted pianist who made his concert debut in 1913. But the outbreak of war would soon change his life for ever. Having enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian army, Wittgenstein was seriously injured fighting the Russian army in the Battle of Galicia, losing his right arm. This was tragically a common wartime injury: right-handed soldiers often suffered damage to their dominant limb during combat. Taken prisoner after the battle, Wittgenstein was moved to a Siberian camp. Here he etched out the lines of a piano keyboard in charcoal on the base of an upturned wooden crate, spending several hours a day hammering the phantom keys with his remaining hand. A visiting dignitary, witnessing this poignant and unusual sight, arranged for him to be transferred to a camp where there was an upright piano. Wittgenstein set to work figuring out how to play the pieces he adored – but with his left hand alone. Repatriated to Vienna in 1915, Wittgenstein faced the monumental challenge of reinventing himself as a one-handed pianist. With steely determination (and his family's immense wealth and elite connections), he set out to build a career. He commissioned some of the most celebrated composers of the era to write works for him. These included concertos by Prokofiev, Strauss, Britten, Korngold and Hindemith. Wittgenstein did not perform every piece he commissioned. He told Prokofiev that he did not understand his 4th Piano Concerto: 'The inner logic of the work is not clear to me, and, of course I can't play it until it is.' He quarrelled with other composers over changes he demanded to their scores. Among the works he commissioned was Ravel's aforementioned Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. Yet even that iconic work was not scandal-free: Wittgenstein made changes to the score for the premiere. Ravel was incensed, and the pair only reconciled after Wittgenstein agreed to perform it as originally written. The concerto is a triumph of ingenuity and artistry. Though it was composed at around the same time as Ravel's other Piano Concerto, for two hands, the works are poles apart – each a unique testament to the composer's mastery of orchestration and piano writing. I vividly remember hearing it for the first time as a 15-year-old. Its opening captivated me immediately: an ominous visceral rumble from the orchestra that gradually unfolds into a majestic theme, rising through the low growl of the instruments. All the while the pianist sits in suspense waiting for their dramatic entrance. The attention is electric, and ice-cold nerves are required from the soloist as they prepare for their moment of brilliance. Throughout his life Ravel was inspired by the play of water. Jeux d'eau (Water Games, 1901), and Ondine (the water nymph) from Gaspard de la Nuit (1908) convey this beautifully. Yet, for me, his most water-like musical achievement comes in the left-hand concerto's breathtaking extended cadenza, heard towards the end of the work. Here the piano becomes a shimmering cascade, rippling and flowing with crystalline beauty before building to a powerful conclusion. Specialising in this extraordinary repertoire is a privilege, a responsibility and, at times, a real challenge. If my forthcoming Proms performance of the Ravel whets your appetite to hear more, I recommend the Britten Diversions for Piano Left Hand and Orchestra as well as Martinu's Concertino (Divertimento), a lovely little gem of a work for chamber orchestra and piano left hand. And I confess I can't agree with Wittgenstein about the work's inner logic – I'll be performing Prokofiev's 4th Piano Concerto next year, and will also soon be adding Korngold's glorious Piano Concerto for Left Hand to my repertoire. There are still preconceptions around disability and a career in music. As one of just a few classical soloists with a physical disability, I've had to be patient and resilient and to develop a thicker skin simply because I don't fit into the correct box. But I hope I can inspire the next generation of pianists to explore this remarkable music. Just as Wittgenstein blazed a trail for me, I aspire to light the way for others, ensuring that the legacy of left-hand-alone music continues to thrive. Nicholas McCarthy performs Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand at the Proms on 20 July. Listen live on BBC Radio 3 or on demand until 12 October. This is an edited version of an essay that is in the BBC 2025 Proms Guide
Boston Globe
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Bill Barclay's Concert Theatre Works, Seong-Jin Cho, and Pekka Kuusisto hit it off with BSO at Tanglewood
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up And though condensed to a trim hour and a half, all the oft-quoted lines were still there, and the well-worn tragedy still packed an emotional wallop. Kelley Curran ('The Gilded Age') made a winsome and willful Juliet opposite James Udom's tender-hearted, loyal Romeo. Caleb Mayo — last seen as the title role in Concert Theater Works's 'Peer Gynt' with the BSO — was a boisterous Mercutio, and Shakespearean veteran Robert Walsh deftly handled the double role of the put-upon Friar and rustic Nurse with the help of a quick-change costume by Arthur Oliver. Advertisement As with any opening night, it had its hiccups, but the cast deftly handled those it could; when actor Carman Lacivita's (Tybalt) sword appeared to be stuck in its sheath during the opening Capulet-Montague brawl, Mayo's Mercutio taunted his rival with a grin and a cheeky wiggle. Later in the play, during a scene in which the Nurse consoled Juliet opposite the Friar advising Romeo, Walsh seemed to realize that flipping the skirt of his robe to switch characters was prompting unintentional laughter, and let his face and voice do the work of the costume instead. Some of the actors' body mics were amplified to uncomfortable levels where I was sitting, particularly when it came to Nigel Gore's avuncular and then terrifying Lord Capulet, but that's a problem that can be solved, and this is a 'Romeo and Juliet' I'd see again. Here's hoping for a repeat performance at Symphony Hall with as much of this cast as possible. Advertisement Saturday evening was also conducted by Nelsons. The centerpiece was unmistakably pianist Seong-Jin Cho, who tackled both Ravel's Piano Concerto in G and Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. During the Concerto in G he seemed to play the role of master of ceremonies, playing to the crowd with extroverted sparkle before going inward for the second movement, which was transcendently unsentimental and thoroughly exquisite. In the Left Hand concerto, by contrast, he gave the impression of Alice down the rabbit hole, beset by improbable creatures and strange sounds. 'Wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?' the audience seemed to demand with applause, and Cho would have been within his rights to make like Juliet and retreat out of sight, but he sat down, comically stretched out his right hand, and produced another little Ravel bauble. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Advertisement The Ravel twofer was bookended with two Debussy dreamscapes. First came 'Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,' featuring flutist Lorna McGhee with her first major solo for the Tanglewood crowd as BSO principal. Her sound was hypnotically smooth and broad, almost reminiscent of an alto saxophone at points. During the applause, bows were waving and feet were stomping onstage. The evening ended with 'La Mer,' pleasant. Harpists Jessica Zhou and Kristin Keches had much to do across the board that evening, and handled it all with keen elegance. Those French fellows loved their orchestral harp; one moment is crystallized in my mind from the Ravel Concerto in G when Zhou seemed to rip the melody right out of the pianist's hands. Sunday afternoon's slot was intended to be the long-awaited return of Esa-Pekka Salonen to the BSO podium, 13 years having passed since his last appearance. However, the Finnish conductor withdrew during the week of July 4 for personal reasons, and frequent BSO collaborator Thomas Adès picked up the baton for the same program. The music, by California composer Gabriella Smith and Finnish national hero Sibelius, wasn't so squarely in Adès's wheelhouse as it is in Salonen's – but Adès is no slouch, and led the orchestra in a satisfying afternoon that approached sublime a few times. Advertisement Smith's 'Tumblebird Contrails,' inspired by a moment of communion with nature at the edge of the Pacific, conveyed the experience of feeling infinitesimally small through its chugging percussion rhythms and massive stringscapes; the sound seemed to spread out to the horizon like the sea. This one should be heard live. Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto, a frequent Salonen collaborator, made his Tanglewood debut with the Sibelius violin concerto. Kuusisto is a contemporary music specialist, and accordingly, he played the chestnut concerto like it was bracing and new. The first movement ruminated, while the second was inquisitive and innocent. To the romping dance of the third, Kuusisto jumped in like a wedding crasher; smooth, confident, and just a little bit (intentionally) out of lockstep with the grounded, steady rhythms of the orchestra. The crowd called for an encore, and Kuusisto began to speak. In 1918 or so, when Sibelius was composing his 5th symphony — which the audience was about to hear after intermission — there was a short-lived movement in newly-independent Finland to install a king, 'but we decided to not do that,' he said. He paused. 'I recommend it.' For all the cheering, Kuusisto couldn't start his blazing Finnish fiddle-tune encore for half a minute. BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA At Tanglewood, Lenox. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. A.Z. Madonna can be reached at
