The piano and the left hand
Piano works written for the left hand alone are not few. Nor are they plentiful. But among this no lesser number, there are pieces belonging to outstanding composers of almost all times. Most of them, however, are rewritings due to the request of some momentarily crippled pianist or recreated with the purpose of serving as a gigantic exercise for the less skilled hand of an ambidextrous musician.
Wittgenstein
But there are also original pieces commissioned by a pianist crippled forever; this is the case of the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in the First World War, and who received the collaboration of Richard Strauss, Prokofiev, Hindemith and, of course, Ravel (Concerto in D major), thus managing to form, order after order, a new handful of magnificent works just for the left hand.
Brahms
In the previous century, Johannes Brahms gave Clara Schumann an arrangement for the left hand of Bach's Chaconne in D minor so that the pianist would not fall into depression after suffering a minor right hand accident which, in the end, did not become serious.
Godowski
And between the 19th and 20th centuries, the Polish pianist Leopold Godowski (1870 - 1935) stands out, possessing an extraordinary technique that allowed him to rewrite no more and no less than several of Chopin's Etudes for the solo left hand, moving both by a didactic zeal and by the desire to show the world what dimensions his own technique encompassed.
Scriabin
Around the same time, the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872 - 1915) wrote, albeit for his own delectation and enjoyment, a Prelude and a Nocturne, both deeply romantic, as a result of an ailment of the right arm during his adolescence, following his hard work with Liszt's most fierce pieces. Both pieces make up his Opus 9, from 1894.
In a rendition by the extraordinary Chinese pianist Yuja Wang, the less than three minutes Prelude is presented here.
