A question arising rather naturally when one considers the piano repertoire for the left hand alone is “why should one play with one hand instead of two?”. There may be a number of reasons, and the works recorded on this Da Vinci Classics album represent a variety of answers to this question.
A first reason may be mere virtuosity, or even “showing off”. It is almost a refined, artistic version of people riding a monocycle instead of a bicycle, or riding a horse without using a saddle.
A more refined and artistic reason may be that of voluntarily and deliberately choosing heavy limitations, in the belief that true art may (and at times must) arise precisely from cogent boundaries. It is an equivalent of poets adopting very complex metres, such as those of the Japanese haiku or of the lyrical sestina. It is a rather countercultural belief, today, since a commonly shared opinion is that art can only bloom in conditions of total freedom, if not utter arbitrariness. Yet, many artists throughout history have felt otherwise, and left us masterpieces whose technical difficulty by no means diminishes their artistic value – quite the contrary.
Still another reason may be very objective and also rather saddening: there are pianists who lost (or perhaps never had) the use of one of their hands, and who nevertheless wish to play. This was the case with Paul Wittgenstein (brother of Ludwig, the philosopher), who inspired the creation of many of the most important masterpieces ever written for piano left hand.
Of course, when the reason for playing with just one hand is a physical one, obviously there is one hand that can play and another that cannot, and the choice of which hand should play is a forced one. In the former cases, however, one may wonder why there are so many pieces written for the left hand alone, and so few for the right hand.
One reason is historical: precisely because many pieces for one hand were commissioned by people who had lost the use of their right hand, this generated a circular situation, whereby demand created offer and offer created demand.
But there is a deeper and more musical reason, which also justifies the fact that several pieces for the left hand were composed or arranged before the intervention of Paul Wittgenstein.
Playing with just one hand requires that a number of functions that are normally divided between the two hands be subsumed by the only hand which is playing. Of course, the composer or arranger will have to renounce some features of traditional piano scoring, because, clearly enough, having five or ten fingers at one’s disposal is not the same thing. However, in order to achieve a satisfactory musical result, some minimal requirements need to be complied with. At least in traditional styles, piano works should have at least one melodic line (more than one in the case of polyphony) and a harmonic accompaniment, based on a bass line. From the standpoint of timbre and balance, the melodic line (which frequently is in the upper part) should be clearly distinguishable from the rest; among the harmonic parts, the bass line is the most important.
A pianist’s left hand is used to create layers between the bass line and the filling parts, so this aspect is uncontroversial and almost automatic. The melodic line can be played by the thumb and the adjacent fingers, which are more powerful than the others. Furthermore, it is possible to play much larger intervals between first and second finger than between any two other fingers; this allows, at least occasionally, for a huge distance between melody and accompaniment, mimicking that usually found in a two-hand conventional writing style.
For these reasons, if one has to choose which one hand can play a piano piece, the most obvious option is normally the left hand.
In this Da Vinci Classics album, there are works which represent a variety of approaches to the potential and to the limitations of one-hand piano playing.
The CD opens with a “transcription” after Bach’s first Cello Suite, BWV 1007. The use of inverted commas is justified by the fact that it is more a literal transposition than a transcription proper. Both the cello and the pianist’s left hand are more at ease in the lower register; both tend to “sing” with their higher pitches and to employ the lower ones as a harmonic support. Both normally play with other musical lines, but both seem rather keen on demonstrating their capability to sustain themselves without any external help.
The possibility of playing Bach’s Suites for unaccompanied cello on the piano, with the left hand alone, has been observed by many pianists in the nineteenth and twentieth century. These pieces, which are among the first in music history to consider the cello as an autonomous instrument, are easily transposed to the piano keyboard (although not easily played, of course!), and are a source of great musical delight for both players and listeners, thanks to their excellent musical quality and intriguing technical challenges.
Alexander Scriabin’s Prelude op. 9 forms a diptych with a Nocturne, both being written for the left hand alone. Scriabin – a highly accomplished piano soloist himself – suffered on many occasions of injuries to his right hand, possibly due to excessive or unregulated practice habits. This Prelude, dating from Scriabin’s early activity, is firmly rooted within the Romantic language and is powerfully reminiscent of Chopin’s lyrical elan. In spite of its compact size and of its writing (which never becomes transcendentally difficult) it is a very touching, perfectly scored piece, whose expressiveness never fails to conquer the listener.
Adolfo Fumagalli was one of four brothers, all of whom were composers and pianists in mid-nineteenth-century Italy. Adolfo was one of the pioneers of piano playing with just one hand, and he capitalized on that skill, which was – at his time – rather exceptional. His prodigious left hand reminded many of the similarly prodigious left hand of his (almost) contemporary Niccolò Paganini, to the point that Fumagalli was dubbed “the Paganini of the Piano”. He wrote several, highly virtuosic works for the left hand alone, most of which are based on famous tunes excerpted from Italian operas. The combination of transcendental virtuosity and operatic themes leads us to qualify his works among the “showpieces” where the technique of playing with just one hand is adopted in order to demonstrate exceptional skill. Here the dimension of the “spectacular” is central, as is proved by the piece performed in this album. The theme is derived from one of the most famous arias of all times (in a more recent era, it was sung unsurpassably by Maria Callas), i.e. Casta Diva from Bellini’s Norma. Fumagalli’s version is rich in octaves, cadenzas, arpeggiated chords, and its writing encompasses nearly the full range of the keyboard. The result is an impressive work, which splendidly demonstrates that, in an expert’s hands, just five fingers can create the illusion of a full pianistic texture.
Three pieces transcribed after Robert Schumann’s works follow. Two of them are excerpted from his Album für die Jugend, and this alone qualifies these pieces as something radically different from Fumagalli’s concert paraphrase. Schumann’s Album, one of the great classics of piano teaching, is a magnificent collection whose progressive and very educational difficulty is matched by an unfailingly high musical quality. Something similar can also be said of the Bunte Blätter, in turn neither the most difficult nor the most spectacular of Schumann’s works (but, of course, these small gems are very fascinating artistic accomplishments). These three pieces were transcribed for the left hand alone by that same Paul Wittgenstein who commissioned many masterpieces of the left-hand repertoire. Wittgenstein also signed the transcription after Bach’s Siciliano, excerpted from Flute Sonata BWV 1031 – one of Bach’s most unforgettable tunes, arranged here with intense expressivity.
Another transcriber who favoured extreme virtuosity and brilliancy was Count Géza Vasony-Keo Zichy, who died exactly a century ago. Among his transcriptions and arrangements for the left hand alone are the “Military” Polonaise by Chopin, Schubert’s Erlkönig (whose piano part is notoriously challenging also when played with two hands, and without performing the vocal part in addition!), and a version of Bach’s Chaconne, which seems to challenge that realized by Brahms. His Valse is a very Romantic piece, which once more creates the illusion of a two-hand piano scoring.
Brahms’ version of Bach’s Chaconne, just mentioned, is one of the great classics of the left-hand repertoire. The Chaconne is one of the most beautiful and most difficult pieces for unaccompanied violin, and Brahms stated that he wanted to feel the same challenges experienced by violinists when playing it. His version is an almost literal rendition of the violin part, with a few harmonic fillings, and it maintains the sobriety and intensity of the original violin part.
Another string instrument, i.e. the guitar, is behind Ponce’s Malgré tout, a thrilling habanera written by the composer when he was still in his teens. The title (“In spite of all”) alludes to an eponymous sculpture carved by Jesús Contreras (1866-1902), a friend of Ponce, who had lost his right arm but still kept creating art. Touchingly, then, the use of the left hand alone is not determined here by the pianist’s loss of a hand, but by the dedicatee’s condition.
Finally, this album includes two world premieres. One is a piece by Kleanthe Russo, a Greek-born conductor and composer who dedicated it to pianist Giovanni Nesi. The piece’s form is inspired by an ancient song. Its subtle melody, accompanied by gestures typical for the cithara, returns in pianissimo after a central episode whose protagonist is the interval of fourth.
Sollini’s Black Dream, in turn dedicated to Giovanni Nesi, has a powerful expressivity and is clearly inspired by the introduction to Robert Schumann’s First Piano Sonata. This piece also exists in a version for solo cello (op. 50A). At the piece’s heart is a suggestive quotation after an extremely famous song of the Italian partisans, Bella Ciao, which appears phantom-like in a fascinating harmonic game of pianissimo timbral effects.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2024
Original and Transcribed Piano Music for the Left Hand: Bach, Schumann, Brahms, Sollini, Wittgenstein, Scriabin
