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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