"
Tsujii’s hands are small, but he managed the giant fistfuls of notes with nonchalant ease..." --
Michael Church ,
the U.K. Independent, January 31 2019
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Image: a photo of Nobu's hands on the keyboard, posted in 2013 by the
BBC Philharmonics,In"Nobuyuki Tsujii at the Southbank Centre, London, review: An extraordinary performance by any standards", long-time writer Michael Church of the U.K. Independent wrote:
Tsujii’s hands are small, but he managed the giant fistfuls of notes with nonchalant ease, whipping up the audience into a frenzy of excitement.
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It is a great review for Nobu: 5 stars and full of superlatives, for which this Nobu fan is eternally grateful. But I did take Mr. Church to task for his careless remark that "90% of the audience [
at the Jan 30 Southbank Queen Elizabeth Hall recital] was Japanese."
Carolyn,
reader of my blog post, on the other hand, took issue with his assertion about Nobu's hand size:
"Nobuyuki Tsujii's hands are NOT small; he has beautiful hands with long fingers. I have never seen such beautiful hands nor such dexterous ones. He successfully accomplishes all of his performances with these hands. There is none other like him and we are fortunate to be alive to witness him. He is truly special."
I have shaken Nobu's hands many times. But, not knowing about other pianist's hands, I could not opine on whether Nobu's hands are small compared to others. I did think (as perhaps did Mr. Church) that, as an Asian, Nobu's hands are smaller than say European hands.
Today, I came upona tweet posted by musician pianist
瀬川玄 Gen Sagawa. Below you will find an image of his tweet, which -- judging from the 'like' and 'retweet' counts, has received some attention.
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In English, it reads:
A list of pianist hand sizes
Reiko Nakamura 8 degrees
Ashkenazy 8 degrees
Barenboim 9 degrees
Horowitz 10 degrees
Marc-André Hamelin 11 degrees
Nobuyuki Tsujii 11 degrees
Richter 12 degrees
Rubinstein ... 12 degrees
Lang Lang 12 degrees
Liszt 13 degrees
Rachmaninov 13 degrees
In response to inquiries, the tweeter wrote that the data is based on "videos and oversea interviews"; and he wrote that the accuracy cannot be verified, and maybe "one degree off either way" in each case.
No one asked about the metric of the measurement, nor did any of those who responded to the post question the data for Nobu and others. (Several did question the '8 degree' ascribed to Ashkenazy, pointing out that Ashkenazy himself has said [in interviews] that his hands are of average size.)
I did a search on the web. It turns out the hand size/span is a popular topic in pianist circle. Among the many articles that came up is one posted in 2016 by U.K.'s
Classic FM, titled
"Just how massive was Rachmaninov's hand-span?" How far could the great pianists stretch their hands? We take a look at just how big the hands of the star virtuosos were, from Rachmaninov to Liszt and Barenboim to Lang Lang.
Did you know that Daniel Barenboim, one of his generation's most respected pianists, can manage to straddle a 9th on the piano, where the likes of Rachmaninov and Liszt could handle a whopping 13th?
And an "infograph" is then presented to illustrate the point. ![]()
In the infograph, images of 6 detached hands -- labeled Scriabin (8), Dame Myra Hess (9), Barenboim (9), Lang Lang (12), Liszt (13) and Rachmaninov (13) respectively -- are superimposed on the keyboard of a grand piano. The numbers shown with some names match the data cited in Pianist Sagawa's tweet, so I suspect that this article is the genesis of the data posted by Sagawa-san.
If that is indeed the case, then the number cited with each pianist refers to the count of keys that the pianist's hand, stretched, can cover: 8 for Scriabin, 13 for Liszt and Rachmaninov, and so forth.
It does not seem far-fetched that by looking at videos of Nobu's performances, a knowledgeable and astute person may arrive at the conclusion that Nobu's hands can cover a stretch of 11 keys, as cited in the tweet of pianist Sagawa. And, if the numbers in the tweet are to be believed, then Carolyn is right: Nobu's hands are not small at all -- his stretch is greater than Ashenazy, Barenboim and Horowitz!
But let's do keep in mind that the twitter's report is unverified, and hence to be taken with a large grain of salt. Besides, as Sagawa-san himself acknowledged, in response to inquiries: "The distance between fingers and the flexibility of the fingers are also important factors in piano playing."
In the article Nobu' Fever: Japan Falls for a Blind Piano Prodigy, (Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 Time Magazine, writer
Yuki Oda wrote
"The round-faced, stout Tokyoite — he says he takes after his dad, except for the fingers."
And, in this photo below of the Tsujii family, Nobu's dad proudly shows off the large hand of his son. It is as if, defying the law of nature, Nobu somehow willed himself to develop the large hands for him to become a world-class pianist.
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Image below: Nobu in performance, his hands perched on the keyboard of a Steinway Grand, 2014.
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*** RELATED ARTICLESU.K. Indepedent reviews Nobuyuki Tsujii Jan 30 2019 recital at QEB Hall "Just how massive was Rachmaninov's hand-span?" - Classic FM
