The Concerto for the Left Hand was commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, an Austrian pianist who had lost his right arm on the Russian front in the first months of World War I. Wittgenstein was the seventh child of one of Vienna’s most notable families and brother of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. After the war he was determined not to give up his career and devoted tremendous effort to developing a formidable technique with his left hand. His family’s fortune enabled him to commission more than a dozen works for piano lefthand from such prominent composers as Prokofiev, Hindemith, Britten and Ravel. Ravel was so fascinated by this challenge that he put aside the Concerto in G and devoted himself to studying examples of previous compositions for the left hand. Wittgenstein received Ravel’s work in 1931 and was the soloist of its premiere on January 17, 1933 in Paris. The pianist was not entirely enthusiastic about the piece and the two argued over Wittgenstein’s request for changes. Ravel held his ground, and the pianist eventually came to acknowledge the masterpiece as “a great work”. This is one of Ravel's most dramatic works. As the composer explained: “In a work of this kind, it is essential to give the impression of a texture no thinner than that of a part written for both hands. For that same reason, I resorted to a style that is much nearer to that of the more solemn kind of traditional concerto. A special feature is that after a first section in this traditional style, a sudden change occurs and the jazz music begins”. At the end of the 1920s Ravel had become friendly with George Gershwin. He loved both Gershwin’s music and the Harlem jazz the American composer introduced him to. The concerto is in one lengthy movement. It begins in the darkest depths of the orchestra with the lugubrious contrabassoon intoning the principal theme. The horns respond with a syncopated blues idea that will achieve its full jazz potential later. A long orchestral crescendo builds anticipation for the piano’s delayed entrance. Unaccompanied, the pianist plays a virtuoso cadenza, full of chords and bravura figurations covering the entire keyboard. Ravel described it as an improvisation, though it is meticulously written out. The tempo speeds up in the following jazz episode. “Only gradually”, Ravel wrote, “is one aware that the jazz episode is actually built up from the themes of the first section”. The pianist leads a frenetic danse macabre. The syncopated horn idea from the opening is then played by a solo bassoon, now with a bluesy accompaniment of side drum, wood blocks, and muted trumpet. Ravel repeats this motive with increasing insistence and it figures prominently in the pianist’s final spectacular cadenza. Orly Tal MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) C O N C E R T O I N D M A J O R F O R P I A N O L E F T H A N D A N D O R C H E S T R A ca. 19 mins.
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