Maurice Ravel might have been approaching his own crossroads in the fall of 1929, just before pianist Paul Wittgenstein contacted him for a commission. We know, through hindsight, that he was nearing the end of his creative output. The year before he’d been exposed to jazz music during a U.S. concert tour. He was captivated by its richness, its diverting rhythm, and following the tour, he no longer felt compelled to create the same pictorial music he’d been doing. Instead he yearned to work with something sharper, leaner.
When Paul Wittgenstein approached him with the commission request, Ravel happily accepted. At that time he was working, coincidentally, on his own Piano Concerto in G major, which he set aside temporarily. For this Concerto for the Left Hand, he decided to let that sharper, darker voice within him speak.
Wittgenstein was a compelling figure, a powerful inspiration to anyone, even now, whose art or vocation appears doomed by this sudden infirmity.
Born in 1875 to a wealthy, influential Viennese family, he was the seventh of eight children, all of whom were musically gifted. The family’s considerable fortune, and likely his family name, enabled Paul to commission over a dozen works for left-hand piano. With his empty right-jacket sleeve, he powered past naysayers and pitiers to make his musical future happen.
Here is Yuja Wang to play this music by Maurice Ravel for you:
