Piano Concerto in D major for the left hand

ravel: piano concerto in D major

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Piano Concerto in D major for the left hand

Lento – ­Allegro – Tempo primo

Of all the works written for the left hand of Paul Wittgenstein, Ravel’s Concerto in D major is by far the most successful. After losing his right arm in the First World War, the Austrian pianist had courageously reassembled his career by developing his left-hand technique and commissioning suitable scores from some of the more interesting composers of the day. Richard Strauss, Sergei Prokofiev, Franz Schmidt and Benjamin Britten are among those who added to the left-hand repertoire at his request.

As a brother of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the pianist had a mind of his own – “performers are not slaves,” he told Ravel – and, although he eventually understood the greatness of the Concerto in D, he refused to play it as the composer had written it. “Performers are slaves,” Ravel insisted when he realised the extent of the changes the pianist made for the first performance in Vienna in 1932.

One aspect of the greatness of the Piano Concerto in D is that it never sounds limited in any way. Since the soloist’s activity is necessarily based on the lower half of the keyboard, Ravel avoids the danger of the piano sounding freakish in this respect by favouring the lower registers of the orchestra too – giving the work the dark colouring that so clearly distinguishes it from the Concerto in G on which he was working at much the same time. Moreover, so as not to demand too much of the pianist’s one-armed stamina, he worked out a formal strategy by which he could incorporate slow-movement and scherzo or finale elements in a compressed single-movement construction.

The structural economy is such that as soon as the main theme arises from the nether regions, on double bassoon against darkly rumbling cellos and basses, two horns reply to it with a second subject. A syncopated blues tune, the new theme is then combined with the first in full-orchestral ceremony. The entry of the piano, with a cadenza of fanfares and wide-spread chords, is no less imposing. Even more ingenious in its scoring, the slow-movement element is an improvisation for piano alone, the left hand tracing a tenderly lyrical melody over its own arpeggio accompaniment.

The longest section is the scherzo. The syncopated theme and a bizarre jig-like variant with a hint of the Dies irae in it are developed on piano and wind against relentlessly regular jazz-band rhythms. The approaching menace is turned back neither by more playful woodwind material nor by a blues episode on bassoon. Although a reprise of the Lento opening section, extended by another masterly cadenza, restores stability, it takes only a fragmentary recall of sardonic scherzo material to upset it again.

Gerald Larner©

When Ravel was on the jury of the ISCM in Geneva in December 1928, I remember very well how little part he played in our deliberations, despite his personal charm and idealistic outlook. When it came to voting it was hard to get him to commit himself and some of the scores baffled him completely. Heinz Tiessen was praising a new symphony by a young German composer. ‘It’s all Chinese to me,’ said Ravel, ‘but if you tell me it’s good German music I’ll vote for it.’ - Eward J.Dent