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 page-turner.
Graham Mytton
Dorking, Surrey
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