The title of William Grant Nabore's remarkable album, 'For the Left Hand' raises several questions, primarily why write music for one hand when there are two? The answers, whether pragmatic or subjective, come thick and fast. There have been more pianists that is commonly realised who whether from birth, illness or accident were deprived of the use of both hands. And this has provided a special challenge to the composer to create music of substance with limited means.
Famously, Ravel wrote his Concerto for the Left Hand for the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein, a victim of war. An arrangement by Alfred Cortot for two hands was roundly condemned by Clifford Curzon on the grounds that Ravel meticulously exploited the relative strengths of the fingers of the left-hand regarding cjaracter and colour. Notable pianists cursed with focal dystonia, a neurological condition include Leon Fleisher and Gary Graffman who found their careers tragically circumscribed.
Ravel apart, Prokofiev, Korngold and Britten all composed works for piano and orchestra for the left hand only and there is a wealth of solo music similarly challenging a seeming limitation.
Again, the left hand has always needed extra attention because of its usual subservience to the right hand. As an outstanding British piano teacher put it to a luckless student who paid insufficient attention to the left hand, 'I mean, the left hand is so important isn't? I mean you don't want it to sit there going plah, plah, plah do you.
This necessarily discursive opening takes me to Nabore's recording which he dedicates 'to 'J.S.Bach, the father of us all.' He makes the Bach-Brahms Chaconne the centre piece of his programme, reminding us of Brahms own awe and wonder at Bach's original for solo violin. Writing for one hand rather than two he mirrors his reverence for greatness achieved by a small instrument by similarly limiting his resource; the reverse of Busoni's opulent transcription. Nabore's commitment is expressed in the weight and significance he gives to every note and phrase, a magnificent realisation of a cruelly exposed score. Free and poetic, he allows himself ample time to make his points and the result is rich and deeply expressive.
Reinecke's ambitious four movement Sonata—for Nabore a 'hidden gem"-- provides the other major contribution, its romantic fervour light years away from Bach, making the following music by Scriabin more logical than arbitrary. The first movement's principal idea is strenuously argued, the second inspired by a Hungarian folk song, 'my love, do not enter a harvested field,' the third a heavy footed minuet and the third, 'Allegro molto,' suitably turbulent and virtuosic
Scriabin's more familiar Prelude and Nocturne resulted from the composer's injury caused by over-practising Liszt's Don Juan Fantasy and Balakirev's Islamey. And if the circumstances are sad the result is a deep dyed haunting romanticism. And even if an element of strain enters the performance, the musical integrity is never in doubt.
Finally, Godowsky, a master of ingenuity or a gilder of lilies according to taste. For Nabore his Elegie is 'one of the most poignant expressions of grief in all music' while the Prelude on the music of Bach' provides a joyful conclusion to a magnificent recital given not only in memory of Bach but to all those whose pianists whose life long ambition and careers were affected by misfortune.
Bryce Morrison