Could COVID improve access?: Accessibility, remote working and pandemic

UK Disability History Month runs from 18th November to 20th December each year. Alice Bennett reflects on the digital shift forced by the pandemic in the light of this year's theme "Access: How far have we come? How far have we to go?"

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many social changes but one of the greatest has been the digital shift, as more people than ever study and work remotely. This shift online has not been limited to work but also extended to leisure, with live streamed concerts and stand up performances and increased online content from galleries and theatres, much of it free.

The price of attendance and potential difficulty in travelling to venues is a barrier to attending events and activities for many people, but disproportionately impacts disabled people. The recent availability of so many performances and activities online not only helps to overcome the potential barrier of cost, but also the frequent inaccessibility of venues and transport. It also helps overcome other potential barriers - for example, being able to watch from home opens up live streamed performances to those with chronic pain or fatigue that prevents travel, it enables a good view for those unable to stand gigs, and provides a relaxed and controllable home atmosphere to those who find theatre venues stressful. Recorded National Theatre productions, films released early on platforms such as Amazon and streamed concerts all provide opportunities for a far wider audience to engage with these performances.

During lockdown, getting outside became far more difficult for everyone, although between issues of cost and accessibility of travel, and the accessibility of sites themselves, has meant natural beauty spots can be difficult to access for a great many. Wildlife webcams are not new, but received new attention in lockdown, as a way to facilitate lockdown nature watching - for example the webcams of the UK Wildlife Trusts, which let you stream footage of the natural world (including puffins, shown right, photo of from the UK Wildlife Trusts). Whilst these can benefit anyone in lockdown or otherwise unable to make the trip, the improvement and promotion of these remote means of accessing the natural world are again of particular importance or opening up opportunities for engagement with disabled audiences.

On a more local level, activities such as exercise classes, coffee mornings, music lessons and book clubs are no longer safe to hold in person. Many of these have gone digital, providing what they can online, both in terms of content and maintaining social contact for their users. Again this opens up possibilities for new audiences, for those previously unable to attend.

The shift online has not universally improved accessibility. The move to provide physical services virtually has highlighted the digital divide - the gap between those with reliable high speed internet provision and the technology to use digital tools effectively and those without reliable technology and internet access. Those unfamiliar with digital tools may be similarly excluded. Therefore although the greater online provision has enabled engagement for many more than previously, it has not enabled access for all.

Besides online provision of leisure activities, the pandemic has seen a great many people work remotely, often for the first time. Whilst this has meant the need to adjust to new ways of working, being able to work or study remotely opens opportunities to those with disabilities, removing potential barriers such as inaccessible buildings and difficulty commuting. Whilst this has eased lockdown for many, the sudden proliferation of online resources and working from home wherever possible has not been without comment and some resentment from the disability community. Why is the new accessibility being criticised? Well, the accessibility is not - but rather that it took a pandemic to make it happen.

Many disabled people have had requests to work or study remotely (whether the remote aspect would be full or part time) refused, with individuals having been told that remote working would not be possible for that job or that course. Now, many of those same jobs and courses which could not be managed remotely have been shifted online. As these accommodations are made, there has been understandable anger from those previously denied them.

This topic has come up in the BBC Ouch! Corona pandemic podcast, a spin off from the Ouch! Disability reporting. In the first podcast of the series, broadcast on 29th March 2020, journalist and blogger Natasha Lipman commented:

“It's been very interesting seeing a lot of disabled people online talking about this, saying how people have lost their jobs or had to drop out of university or schools or not be able to get a job in the first place, and then within the space of a week or two remote working, flexible working. Online lectures have suddenly become a thing. So I think it's been something that a lot of people have been finding difficult.

What I've been saying for years is that there are an awful lot of jobs that can be done with more flexibility, and this doesn't just benefit disabled people, it can have huge benefits to a lot of people, but then of course in this situation there are a lot of people who don't have that luxury of being able to say okay, I'm going to keep working but work from home.”

In the second episode of the podcast (broadcast on 1st April 2020), this was also a subject for comment from Ellis Palmer, a producer on BBC NewsHour on the World Service:

“I actually think this crisis could throw up a really, really interesting thing for a lot of disabled people, which is we had to fight a lot of the time to get reasonable adjustments, but now a lot of non-disabled people are finding they need reasonable adjustments, laptops or whatever, to be able to work from home. And now they're realising kind of the wisdom of our fight. Hopefully there will be more of an acceptance of remote working, just spending a day in the office a week. So, I actually think the future of work post COVID-19 could be potentially advantageous for disabled people economically speaking.”

The situation is common across economically developed countries. The disability activist Imani Barbarin describes seeing a company publicizing their working from home provision during the pandemic - a company which has previously told her that working from home would be impossible. Her article outlining her anger at the situation appeared on 31st March 2020 in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

So will COVID change this? At this point, we don't know. It is too soon to predict the long term social impact of this pandemic. Enabling more widespread remote working could improve diversity, particularly opening up possibilities for work and study for those living with chronic illness or disability. With lockdowns creating enforced experiments on the possibilities of remote working, studying and wider engagement, COVID may have proved that more online access is possible than previously thought. It is tragic that it has taken a pandemic to push progress in accessibility, but hopefully, a more flexible and accessible culture or work, study and leisure activities can be a lasting legacy, long after COVID has gone.

If you found this article interesting, there's more like it in our free online Digital Wellbeing course.

Paul Wittgenstein and left-handed piano works.

Paul Wittgenstein at the piano, Bernard Fleishcher Moving Images. 

Given the theme of "Disability and music" for this year's UK Disability History month, Paul Wittegenstein is a figure whose life and work calls out to be remembered.

An Austrian by birth, Wittgenstein studied music in Vienna but was conscripted into the army in 1914. The same year, wounded by a Russian bullet, Paul Wittgenstein’s right arm was amputated and he recuperated as a prisoner of war in a Siberian camp. Despite the loss of his arm, Wittgenstein was determined to pursue a career as a concert pianist. Even whilst a prisoner of war, Wittgenstein designed techniques to help him practice and develop as a pianist. Recovering from his amputation in a prison hospital, Wittgenstein practiced on a keyboard drawn in charcoal on a crate. Later he would practice for up to seven hours at a time to develop his virtuoso skills. 

Wittgenstein’s determination to pursue a musical career despite his disability may have reflected his

Geza Zichy, photograph from the Budapest Archives.

experience being taught musical theory in Vienna by Josef Labor. Labor was a successful organist, composer and tutor despite his blindness. Wittgenstein may also have drawn inspiration from Count Geza Zichy. Zichy was an aristocratic Hungarian who also lost his right arm, although not as a soldier but in a hunting accident as a teenager. Zichy went on to enjoy a successful career as a concert pianist, as well as variously working as a lawyer, acting as the Intendant of the Royal Hungarian Opera and the president of the Hungarian National Conservatory and producing musical compositions, several operas, an autobiography and two volumes of verse
He studied with the composer Franz Liszt with whom he became close friends and the two later gave concerts together. Zichy’s own compositions are not well-known, but amongst them he produced various piano compositions for the left hand alone, as well as arranging compositions by well-known composers as a piano piece for the left hand.

Zichy offered a model of a successful concert pianist and one who created a repertoire for himself after the loss of his arm. Rather than primarily writing pieces for himself to perform, Wittgenstein not only adapted existing compositions to be played with one hand, but also commissioned works by a range of composers. Like Zichy, Wittgenstein came from a wealthy background and commissioned work from composers including Benjamin Britten, Richard Strauss, Sergei Prokofiev and Maurice Ravel, with Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand probably the best known.

Whilst Wittgenstein performed some works widely, he received other commissioned compositions less gladly. Paul Hindemuth wrote a left handed concerto for Wittgenstein in 1923, but Wittgenstein did not understand the composition and filed it away unplayed. It was uncovered decades later in a house that belonged to Wittgenstein’s widow and finally premiered by Leon Fleisher in 2004.

Although Wittgenstein’s commissions and reputation created a new repertoire of work for pianists with only left hand, this did not automatically improve the selection of left handed works available. Wittgenstein retained sole right to perform the compositions he commissioned during his lifetime - even those which he chose not to perform. Like the unplayed work by Hindemuth, a 1931 concerto by Prokofiev remained unperformed by Wittgenstein. The pianist Siegfried Rapp had lost his right arm in the Second World War and in 1950 wrote to Wittgenstein for permission to perform the Prokofiev concerto. Wittgenstein denied him access to the work in no uncertain terms:

  “...those works to which I still have the exclusive performance rights are to remain mine as long as I still perform in public; that's only right and fair. Once I am dead or no longer give concerts, then the works will be available to everyone because I have no wish for them to gather dust in libraries to the detriment of the composer.”

Rapp eventually managed to obtain a score of the concerto from Prokofiev’s widow and premiered the concerto in 1956, to the annoyance of Wittgenstein. Despite his long career as a concert pianist, Paul Wittgenstein made few recordings. Those that exist were made towards the end of his career and are generally agreed to record him past his musical peak. As such Wittgenstein’s most significant musical legacy was to have commissioned and inspired so many works for left hand alone but he was reluctant to share these with those who could benefit most.

Wittgenstein lived a remarkable life. Surviving the loss of his arm and incarceration in a Russian prison camp during the First World War, he nevertheless pursued a career as a concert pianist. His family were of Jewish descent and during the 1930s and 1940s, became targets for Nazi persecution. Wittgenstein’s wife Hilde, herself partially sighted, was not from a Jewish family, leading to accusations of “racial defilement” and prompting Wittgenstein’s departure for the USA, followed later by his wife and children. Of his 4 brothers, 3 committed suicide. His surviving and youngest brother Ludvig followed a career in philosophy, studying with Bertrand Russell, going on to become one of the great thinkers of the 20th century. Wittgenstein’s life is an amazing story of survival and determination.

You can also explore further with related resources in the library, including those listed below:

Spotify Playlist:

Whilst Wittgenstein is the best known of the one handed pianists who performed through the 19th and 20th century, he was by no means the only one. There were and still are numerous composers and performers working in the music industry who have experienced the loss of one or more limbs. Check out our playlist to hear a selection of their work, as well as Rapp’s performance of Prokofiev and Wittgenstein playing the renowned Ravel composition written for him: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7kj4znmMoaQwFoXkXRUo3l

Music scores:

• Parergon zur Sinfonia domestica: fur Klavier (linke Hand) und Orchester, op. 73 [electronic resource] : For piano (lefthand) and orchestra. LM 14 STRAU/R 55.61 
• Concerto pour la main gauche : pour piano et orchestre LM 14 RAV 55.61
• Diversions : for piano (left hand) and orchestra, opus 21 LM 14 BRIT 55.61

Audio CDs:

• Rattle conducts Britten CD/LM/1770 (features Diversions, opus 21)
• Orchestral works, Ravel, CD/LM/2810 (features concerto for the left hand)