The concerto, commissioned from Maurice Ravel  by Paul Wittgenstein, is the most famous work written for the pianist injured in the war.  Now it is available in an Urtext edition reflecting the latest evaluation of the sources.His story moves us.

Paul Wittgenstein (1887–1961) had barely embarked on his career as a pianist when the First World War broke out. Injured fighting for Austro-Hungary in the war, his right arm had to be amputated. Undeterred by this, after the war Wittgenstein picked up where he had left off. He again performed in concerts, but now with works for only one hand. Audiences admired him for overcoming his war injuries both psychologically and physically. Wittgenstein was a symbol of courage and determination.

However, his pianistic abilities were criticised. Recordings reveal the technical deficiences in his piano playing. The fact that Wittgenstein’s name has nevertheless entered music history is because it is thanks to him that important works for piano left hand were composed. On the basis of celebrated works, he gave paid commissions to the most famous composers of his day, including Richard Strauss, Paul Hindemith, Sergey Prokofiev, and Benjamin Britten. The Concerto for Left Hand for Piano and Orchestra by Maurice Ravel is probably the best-known of twenty piano concertos commissioned by Wittgenstein.

When Wittgenstein and Ravel agreed on a commission in 1929, Ravel was internationally renowned as a composer. Ravel did not have to accept this commission because of the promised 6,000 US dollars. We also do not know whether Wittgenstein was held in particularly high regard. Rather, it seems to have been mainly the compositional challenge which attracted Ravel to compose a piano concerto for the left hand. We know from him that in the composition he strove to create the impression of a work for two hands. One particular difficulty lay in structuring a piece of concert length interestingly, despite the reduction for just one hand. The result was a highly virtuosic and at the same time deeply emotional concerto in just one movement, in which Ravel combined different stylistic elements into a challenging and varied whole.

After receiving the work at the turn of the year 1930/1931, Wittgenstein judged what had been written for him to be insufficiently effective. He wanted to be in the limelight and unhesitatingly altered the solo part and orchestration so that it met his needs. Ravel is said to have replied that interpreters are slaves who should adhere strictly to the music text created by the composer, and he wanted Wittgenstein to be bound to this contractually. Because of these fundamental discrepancies, a joint performance of the work only took place in January 1933 in Paris, a year after the Vienna premiere of the work. But a performance which Ravel was entirely happy with only took place after Wittgenstein’s exclusive richts ran out in March 1937, with Jacques Février. The end of the period of exclusivity then made the publication of the work possible, a process which Ravel was no longer able to fully participate in for health reasons. He died just a few months later.

Wittgenstein’s role is central, not only in the genesis of the work, but also in the publication of the present historical-critical edition of the work. In his private papers, important sources survive which have been evaluated for the first time in the preparation of this edition. With the help of these, it has been possible for the editor Douglas Woodfull-Harris to correct discrepancies in notation and contradictory variant readings in the sources, as well as errors in the first edition. The piano reduction contains both the composer’s fingering and the dedicatee’s – important evidence of the early performance history of the work which was played exclusively by Wittgenstein for several years. Finally, the new edition is completed with a detailed historical introduction, which gives an overview of the current state of research regarding the history of its composition, publication and performance, and considers aspects of reception and performance practice.

Christine Baur
(from [t]akte 1/2017)
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)