Repertoire
Piano music for the left hand
Nils Franke explores the left hand repertoire and explains that there’s way more to discover than showy encores
Virtuosos past and present have enjoyed impressing audiences with their one-handed pyrotechnics, but there’s so much more to left hand repertoire than razzle-dazzle, says Nils Franke
The story of piano music for the left hand alone has so far been linked to debates about injury, or the loss of the right hand (or arm), thereby focusing on the circumstances of individual performers rather than the music’s aesthetic qualities. In this article I want to tell a different story; one of a specialist genre within the vast territory of piano music; one which is so distinct and comprehensive, it offers enough remarkable music to sustain a successful career as a solo, chamber and concerto player – and that is without exploring the considerable potential for commissioning new works!
In my story, the piano repertoire for the left hand need not be compared to that of both hands, because (and this may not be the best of comparisons) a helicopter isn’t a plane, and isn’t meant to be either, although both have a few things in common. My point is that the left-handed piano repertoire is so different, it should be seen as a self-contained approach to working with the instrument. Take Franz Schmidt’s Quintet for Piano left-hand and Strings (1927). It’s more finely balanced than most ‘traditional’ piano quintets, because the piano, for all its timbral contrast to the strings, never dominates but collaborates and integrates instead.
I think therefore the time has come to re-examine piano music for the left hand, to acknowledge its roots, but to concede that another way of using the piano has emerged over time – one which deserves its own aesthetic framework and recognition. WHEN ONE BECOMES TWO
The early days of left hand repertoire are ominously ambiguous. One of the most frequently cited works is a short stand-alone piece by CPE Bach for one hand (c.1770s), making it suitable for use by either the right or left hand. The homophonic playfulness of much of the keyboard repertoire in the Classical period favoured the right hand and consigned the left to providing accompaniment figurations to support the more dominant melodic and brilliant passage work of the right. One of the earliest works for piano left hand, discussed in a range of research papers, is the set of 12 Etudes Op 12 by Ludwig Berger (1777-1839), written in 1816 and published three years later. However, it should be noted that only Etude No 9 in G major is
In terms of solo repertoire, the shape of the left hand (thumb in the higher register) lends itself perfectly to a treble melody and bass-line accompaniment figuration
actually for the left hand alone (‘mano sinistra sola’), but it is nevertheless a beautifully written work with a contrasting middle section in G minor. Despite writing another set of Etudes Op 22 in 1837, Berger did not repeat what at that time must have felt like a bit of an experiment, but he did include a Gigue (Etude No 10), the textures of which almost suggest a left hand work, were it not for the fast metronome mark provided.
When the piano virtuosi of the 1830s (such as Thalberg, Liszt and Mendelssohn) started writing music for two hands in which a third line/texture was shared between both hands, the stage was set for the next level of ‘aural trickery’: if two hands could be made to sound like three, could one hand simulate the presence of two?
Brahms seems to have recognised that for the purpose of writing an effective piano piece, there is no need whatsoever to make one hand sound like two
MASTERS OF THEIR CRAFT
Enter the man who knew how to schematise technical piano skills in the first half of the 19th century: Carl Czerny (17911857). As Czerny captured the early learning stages of training the left hand in the mid-1830s in his School for the Left Hand Op 399 (in which the right hand has a distinctly subservient role), the individual training needs for each hand were noticed by other composers. At the opposite end of the technical spectrum of technical difficulties must be Alkan’s set of Three Etudes Op 76 (c.1838): the first for the left, the second for the right and the third for both hands.
But there was clearly something in the air about the development of piano music for the left hand. Czerny himself included an Exercise for the Left Hand Alone, a self-contained two-page study in the second part of his Piano Method Op 500 (1838/39), and followed this up with Two Etudes for the Left Hand Alone Op 735, published at some point during the 1840s.
It’s unlikely that music publishers would have invested in this repertoire had there not been a growing fascination with this sort of piano music by the concert-going public. One of the first performers to impress his audiences with music for the left hand alone was the pianist Alexander Dreyschock (1818-1869), whose transcriptions are testimony to the extraordinary agility of his left hand. On hearing Dreyschock in Paris, the (by then) elderly Johann Baptist Cramer is reported to have declared that ‘the man doesn’t have a left hand, he has two right hands.’
Looking beyond original music for piano left hand, one of the most intriguing transcriptions for the left hand alone must be Brahms’s relatively literal arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne (1879). The decision to score it for left hand alone not only replicates, at least conceptually, some of the difficulties faced by the violinist who plays Bach’s original work, it also retains Bach’s inferring of harmonies and the textural fluidity of the violin version. With the benefit of historical hindsight, Brahms seems to have recognised that for the purpose of writing an effective piano piece, there is no need whatsoever to make one hand sound like two, which appears to contradict much of the efforts of his contemporaries.
What’s noticeable, nevertheless, is that most left-handed piano music at the time tended to be written and performed by two-handed pianists, and usually for the sole purpose of public showmanship. That was about to change. STANDING OUT FROM THE CROWD
Tracing back the subsequently systematic development of a genre to two individuals may seem a little risky, but it is impossible to underestimate the impact of Count Géza Zichy and Paul Wittgenstein in the story of piano music for the left hand alone. What both had in common were three things: an injury that led to the loss of their right arms, remarkable musical vision and an astonishing degree of personal determination and drive.
Nowadays, the Hungarian Count Géza Zichy (1849-1924) is remembered as a pianist in the Liszt circle, and recipient of Liszt’s only left hand piece, Hungary’s God. Aged 15, Zichy had a hunting accident which meant that his right arm needed to be amputated at the shoulder. What followed next was nothing short of incredible. Zichy was determined to accomplish with his left hand what others did with both, as he confirmed in his autobiography. In fact, part of his self-imposed training process was beginning to learn to play the piano. In 1875, aged 26, he played some of his arrangements to Liszt, who was deeply impressed. By the 1880s, Zichy performed in some of Europe’s
most distinguished concert venues. The (often feared) Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick described Zichy’s performance as displaying a ‘marvellous and astonishing range of tone in a concert study and a Hungarian fantasy, both his own compositions, and then Bach’s Chaconne, in his arrangement for the left hand, with its lightening-like leaps, skips and glides and his polyphonic playing which was so extraordinary that the listeners could scarcely believe their ears and eyes.’
Alongside his successful career as a performer, Zichy concentrated on composition, and his institutional work as the director of the National Conservatory in Budapest from 1875 until 1918.
Arguably the most famous left-handed pianist was the Austrian Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961), whose commissions of great composers (rather than his willingness to play their works) earned him a place in the musical history books. A student of Leschetizky’s, Wittgenstein gave his debut in Vienna aged 26, just before being called up to fight in the First World War. Here a war injury led to the amputation of his right arm, but that only seemed to have increased his desire to establish himself as a pianist. The wealth and social position of the Wittgenstein family soon enabled him to commission some of the most distinguished composers of his time to write concerti for piano left hand: Hindemith, Britten, Bartók, Prokofiev, Strauss and Ravel all provided works that have remained in the (recording) repertoire of pianists today, although live performances are somewhat infrequent by comparison. In addition, Wittgenstein commissioned a number of composers in and around Vienna (e.g. Franz Schmidt, Sergei Bortkiewicz, Erich Korngold) and opened the eyes (and ears) of countless others to the compositional challenges and aesthetic rewards of writing left-handed piano music. HERE TO STAY
In 1957 Wittgenstein published what is still the most comprehensive method for the left hand to date, his School for the Left Hand. There are three volumes, totalling around 240 pages: the first consists of finger exercises, the second of etudes and the third of transcriptions. Wittgenstein also includes performance advice on pedalling, hand and wrist positions and musical emphasis: ‘some strong notes I sometimes play with my fist […] others with the third and fourth fingers at the same time […]’.
Although many of Wittgenstein’s transcriptions are relatively literal arrangements, there is much to be discovered here. One of his finest achievements has to be the left hand version of Liszt’s transcription of Wagner’s Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde.
Wittgenstein held strong views on how to write for the left hand (as Ravel found out), and his musical taste was in some ways rather conservative. Prokofiev’s Fourth Piano Concerto, though commissioned by Wittgenstein, was one of a number of works that he refused to premiere. It finally received its first performance in 1956 by the German pianist Siegfried Rapp (1915-1982), who had lost the use of his right hand in the Second World War.
Towards the end of the 20th century, piano music for the left hand was largely championed by pianists who had temporarily lost control of their right hand through practice-related injury. The Americans Leon Fleisher (1928-2020) and Gary Graffman (b.1928) led the way in their engagement with both past, and
specially commissioned, repertoire for the left hand.
The biographies of Zichy and Wittgenstein illustrate why a discussion of left-handed piano music can easily turn into an understandable preoccupation in overcoming adversity through remarkable levels of discipline, determination and musical imagination. But what about the music itself?
In terms of solo repertoire, the shape of the left hand (thumb in the higher register) lends itself perfectly to a treble melody and bass line accompaniment figuration, which is the textural basis of much of the piano’s core repertoire until the early 20th century.
In chamber and concerto writing, the use of the left hand alone forces composers to rethink traditional elements of musical roles, timbres, and the dialogue between the piano and its collaborators. It leads to a different perception of what the instrument could, and should do, thereby creating a new aesthetic when writing for piano left hand. It is, therefore, a way of re-imagining the use of the piano that is entirely its own.
Read Nils Franke’s lesson on Sartorio’s left hand arrangement of On Wings of Song. Turn also to Graham Fitch’s masterclass for ways to improve your left hand technique.