French Piano Composer Maurice Ravel

Do you think a one-armed man could have a career as a piano soloist? For one determined young man, the answer was, “Yes.”

All you have to do is see the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major, by French Composer Maurice Ravel. It is a true testament to his brilliance, and will as man to do what he loves best.

Back before World War I, a concert pianist by the name of Paul Wittgenstein was trying to make his mark in the world. After being drafted, he sadly lost his right arm throughout the fighting. However, Wittgenstein didn’t believe his concert piano career was over as a result.

Determined to succeed, he began practicing with his remaining hand to improve his left-handed technique. He tried to arrange two-handed works to accommodate his one-handed state. In the late 1920’s Wittgenstein decided to approach leading piano composers of his day and commission works written intentionally for the left hand alone.

Many felt this would not be feasible, but he eventually came across Sergei Prokofiev, Richard Wagner, Benjamin Britten, and Maurice Ravel who believed it was possible.

One of the biggest issues Ravel had in the beginning was that he never wrote a concerto, even though he had written several piano solos. When Wittgenstein approached him, he had already started working on Concerto in G, but it was intended for a two-handed player. During this time he was at a stalemate, and so he decided to take Wittgenstein up on his challenge. During Ravel’s research of left-handed Etudes of Camille Saint-Saens, he began to believe his left-handed Concerto would be a noteworthy addition to piano repertoire.

The meaning behind his eventual completion was about the struggles of a one-armed pianist trying to overcome a tragic injury and reinvent himself. The craftsmanship was brilliant, and the construction left it impossible for listeners to realize it was only being played with one hand.

Though the piece has sometime been described as being in two movements, most experts agree that it is a piece written in one movement, but with three sections. Unlike most concerti, The Piano Concerto for the Left Hand is structured as Slow-Fast-Slow, rather than Fast-Slow-Fast.

Wittgenstein was a client who was famously difficult to please. He found something to complain about in almost every concerto offered to him by his all-star line-up of composers. With Wagner’s work, Wittgenstein complained that the orchestration was too powerful to accompany a single-handed pianist, and would overpower the soloist. With Prokofiev’s work, Wittgenstein declared that he simply would not play it.

Even with the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, Wittgenstein complained about the long solo cadenza right after the opening. During one instance he even told Ravel; “If I had wanted a solo piece, I wouldn’t have commissioned a concerto.” However, Ravel stood his ground, and over time, Wittgenstein began to like it.

In the end, the Concerto for the Left Hand was a true testament to the indomitable human spirit.