Friday Night at the Proms: Ravel's Left Hand Piano Concerto BBC Proms

Hello and a warm welcome to the Proms

where as ever we are offering you the very best seat in the house.

It is wonderful to be back.

Last week I was lucky enough to be here for an evening

of Mozart and Ravel, and tonight

there is another top drawer programme in store.

We have two 20th-century classics for you this evening.

The BBC Philharmonic in very fine fettle during rehearsals earlier.

Later this evening, they bring us a magnum opus by Mahler,

his Symphony No. 5, with that famous Adagietto

which featured in Visconti's iconic film, Death In Venice.

I'm coming over very Dirk Bogarde in my white suit at the moment.

But first, a piece that is very dear to my heart.

As a pianist born with only one hand,

I feel fortunate that it was my left hand, as I was to discover

a whole load of pieces that were composed for the left hand alone,

and this is one of the greatest works in the repertoire.

Tonight, we will be hearing French pianist Alexandre Tharaud

performing with the BBC Philharmonic in Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand.

The story of how this piece came about is fascinating.

It's down to one man, a pianist called Paul Wittgenstein,

who we'll be hearing more about later on.

But first, I'd like to focus on Ravel, on the music.

It's one of the last great pieces he ever wrote.

1929, 1930, so towards the end of his life.

That's right, he actually wrote this left-hand piano concerto

alongside his famous G Major two-handed piano concerto.

I think it's quite interesting to see the difference between the two of them.

They're vastly different pieces.

And the usual habitual cry there of the Prommers of "Heave ho," which you get with any piano concerto,

this one is a real favourite.

Ravel was not necessarily a mainstream composer

until he wrote the big hit, Bolero, and once he discovered that,

he kind of tapped into a mainstream vibe, certainly with this piece?

I think he really wanted to tap into that mainstream and I think

he did that by the use of jazz,

and you will hear in tonight's concerto, there's a lot

of jazz references in the chords he uses, and I think he really drew

on that from Gershwin, because he had just met Gershwin quite recently.

This is the man who met Gershwin and very famously they had

this conversation where Gershwin said to Ravel, the great master,

"Can I learn anything from you, Great Master?"

Ravel found out how much Gershwin earned and was like,

"I don't think so. I think I should be taking lessons from you!"

He did realise that not only was it about public acclaim and approval,

but it was acceptable somehow to enjoy yourself,

to write music that allowed the audience to have a great time,

and where you could be a financial and critical success.

Exactly, and I think another main point with the left-hand concerto especially

is really in essence it's such a big statement.

Melody and accompaniment with one hand, the left hand alone.

That in itself I think is a huge selling point.

And Ravel was very clear about the fact he wanted to make this piece

sound not like it was for one hand but two hands, so there is

this challenge of the left hand doing all the deep bass supporting

and then it has to scoop right up to the top to do all the melodic stuff.

It's a very, even the first minute of what the piano has to do.

Just give us a flavour of what makes this piece so alluring

because it is wild!

It's hugely virtuosic

and it's a piece I always get nervous about playing,

especially for that long orchestral build-up,

and then all of a sudden there's me, the pianist, or in this case Alexandre Tharaud,

sat onstage and waiting to display big bravura fireworks at the piano.

I mean, it's worth saying that if you've never actually seen this concerto performed,

if you've only ever heard it, it is a real wonder to behold,

because it's interesting, I wonder what your take is, that having

watched a lot of two-handed pianists doing it, they go one of two ways.

They either use the right hand very floridly to help the interpretation,

or sit with it very still, as though they've almost switched off that bit of the body.

And I wonder, for you, it's an entirely different physical experience?

Of course, I don't have the choice to play with two hands

but I think it must be incredibly difficult for a two-handed pianist

to play and switch to left hand repertoire.

What's the biggest challenge for the pianist?

Is it to communicate the emotional intensity,

is it to get all the virtuosity and physical stuff?

Because this is Alexandre Tharaud's concerto debut, so it is a big deal.

-What's going to be the biggest thing tonight?

-It's a big deal.

I think the cadenza in this concerto is a very big deal

because it's a very long cadenza and it's a really difficult passage

and I think it's always somewhere where he and myself will get quite nervous about.

Certainly some solo moments

of palpitation for him to worry about,

but a lot of wonderful interplay with the orchestra as well.

Absolutely, there's a lot of fun in this,

especially in the middle section, and you might even hear

a familiar section, Elephants On Parade, that was quoted in Fantasia as well.

And why not, if you want to be mainstream, that's the way to do it.

Anyway, applause now here at the Proms for the conductor who is

leading everything tonight, Juanjo Mena,

he'll be at the helm of the BBC Philharmonic,

and our soloist now on stage, Alexandre Tharaud.

APPLAUSE

Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

performed by the soloist Alexandre Tharaud

making his Proms concerto debut.

I think they rather liked it, don't you?

He was performing here at the Royal Albert Hall tonight with

the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Juanjo Mena.

Wonderful performance there from Alexandre Tharaud

and the audience absolutely loved what he was doing.

I particularly loved the cadenza.

I think he really got that water-like ripple effect down to a T.

He was wonderful.

To me, he's the essence of a really good Ravel pianist,

which is that it isn't steeped in Romanticism.

There's a crystalline beauty, a clarity

and real elegance to his playing.

Interesting, Nick, I think he comes from great French performing stock.

His mum was a dance professor at the Opera in Paris,

his dad was a singer and his grandfather a violinist,

who worked in Paris at the time Ravel was working,

so I think he's absolutely steeped in that whole tradition.

There's stamping of feet, they want him back on stage.

And here he is.

He now returns for an encore.

Just what the audience wanted.

MUSIC: "Prelude for the Left Hand" by Aleksandr Scriabin

APPLAUSE

Alexandre Tharaud, performing I think a really beautiful encore.

Scriabin's Prelude for the Left Hand.

Nick, I've heard you play that piece certainly four, five times,

but it's a most gorgeous piece, isn't it?

It's really a stunning piece,

and it really is a cornerstone of the repertoire,

and as you can hear, the audience loved it.

It's music that was written after Scriabin really damaged his right hand,

during a very intense period of rehearsal.

He was banned from playing with his right hand by his doctor.

And that piece of glorious mystical romanticism was the result.

Nick, we were talking earlier. We mentioned this interesting figure

of Paul Wittgenstein, who has been crucial in the development

of all the repertoire you were talking about before -

this left-hand repertoire.

Let's talk a bit about how the piece we just heard,

Ravel's Left Hand Concerto,

-came about because it's a fascinating story.

-It really is.

Paul Wittgenstein was a very wealthy man.

He always wanted to be a concert pianist.

It wasn't until his father died that he was able to pursue his dream.

Six months later, he was called to battle and lost his right arm

during battle.

Paul Wittgenstein was so key

on putting left-hand repertoire on the map.

He commissioned other composers like Prokofiev, Richard Strauss

and Benjamin Britten,

as well as Ravel, to write concertos for him.

This was a man, I suppose, of incredible grit and determination.

He'd already established himself as a concert pianist,

goes off to war, has this life-shattering amputation

and then decides he's going to completely refashion himself.

Essentially, learn the piano all over again

as a left-hand pianist.

Exactly. He must have had steely determination.

I think, also, he was very innovative.

He was a wealthy man and he used that wealth for his advantage.

Paying these big composers of the day,

the famous composers,

the most famous of that time, to write pieces for him,

was a very clever move.

A clever man, a very determined man.

Not always the easiest man to get on with.

No. Certainly not.

Ravel and him also locked horns

when the composition came about.

There's a couple of quotes... Well, quite a few quotes, actually,

to confirm this.

They had a bad time together, these two!

This is not what you do when a composer like Ravel

writes a piece - this is what Wittgenstein did.

"I think I'll just change a bit of the piano part

"and also the orchestral part."

You just don't do that to a composer like Ravel!

Unsurprisingly, he was appalled and shocked.

Ravel even called it infringement of contract

by Paul doing this.

But interestingly, Wittgenstein had this contract.

He had a six-year hold on the rights to this

so he, essentially, could do with it what he wanted,

which is a bizarre thing to think now.

You would never hand over the total rights of a piece

to the first person who happens to play it.

It says a lot for his force of personality, for the money,

as you say, the power of this family,

that if you've got the Wittgenstein name somehow

you can throw your weight around.

He did this with a lot of composers, not just Ravel.

He fell foul of several people.

Exactly. I remember there's a quote where Paul said,

"You don't build a house for another man to live in it."

That was his motto to do with the pieces.

He didn't want other pianists to play these pieces

if he hadn't played them or liked them himself

because he had paid a lot of money for them.

An interesting clash because if you think of somebody like Ravel,

who was a really good pianist in his own right,

when Wittgenstein sat down for him,

for Ravel to play through this concerto,

Ravel could not play this with one hand. He had to use two.

So they locked horns but very much were sparring partners.

Who could pay more for the commission? Who had the rights?

Who was able to play this? It was very much a blokey,

macho confrontation!

Manly banter is the word for that, I think.

Quite heated at some stages, I'm sure.

We've heard a little about the man.

Let's see some footage of him now.

This is Paul Wittgenstein,

performing the piece we've been talking about,

Ravel's Left Hand Concerto.

This is a recording made in Paris in January 1933. Take a look at this.

The man himself, Paul Wittgenstein,

in 1933.

Not necessarily known as being the best pianist,

even if he was a very forceful...personality,

shall we say?!

That's right. There's some very mixed reviews about his playing.

I've even heard a couple of recordings,

which music critics would walk out or not review if they were around today.

He certainly wasn't the best pianist at certain times.

Even his teacher called him the key-smasher,

which is not exactly kind.

Regardless of whether he was any good,

the piece was a hit, always has been a hit,

ever since it was first heard.

All the way through to today and Alexandre Tharaud at the Proms,

what was your take on his performance?

I absolutely loved his performance.

I thought his touch and tone, which is essential for Ravel, was key.

I found it interesting that he used the score

because that's quite unusual for a concerto soloist.

I thought, though, he gave a brilliant performance.

I loved the encore as well.

-His interpretation of the Scriabin was beautiful.

-Fantastic, I agree,

We are going to leave Ravel because we must move on now

to Gustav Mahler and his mighty Symphony No. 5.

It's one of the greats of the early 20th century.

A hugely popular piece and a real regular here at the Proms,

it's one of Mahler's best-known symphonies,

written between 1901 and 1902.

That's right. I think with this piece what really strikes me

is the Adagietto and that beautiful moment that we all know and love.

The Adagietto, not necessarily written as tragic music

but totally taken on that sense, particularly in America,

really interestingly, where Bernstein kicked it off,

a great champion of Mahler.

When JFK is assassinated, Bernstein doesn't turn to Beethoven,

he turns to Mahler.

Then with Bobby Kennedy's assassination, you hear Mahler.

When Eisenhower dies, you hear Mahler being performed.

He becomes a byword for sorrow and mourning,

I suppose in the light of Visconti's film, as we said,

Death In Venice, which makes the Adagietto seem very tragic.

Actually, it wasn't at all.

That's right. He actually fell in love with his soon-to-be wife

that's in it.

It's almost like a musical love letter.

I think it's a wonderful piece.

-It's a wonderful moment...

-I'd quite like that as a love letter.

-It's not bad!

-Beats a bunch of flowers, I think.

Just a little bit.

It's interesting that, that with Mahler,

you always get, in a sense, on the edge of joy,

and pain, of agony and ecstasy, of love and death.

It's not surprising, in a way, that people think the Adagietto

is tragic but it's love music because that's Mahler's life,

in a way.

He loses ten siblings.

On stage, conducting The Magic Flute,

has a major haemorrhage

and loses a third of his blood.

It's at that point that he writes the Fifth Symphony,

which I think is interesting because suddenly,

he has an awareness, not just of death

but of his own mortality.

I think that shadow really hangs over this piece.

You can hear that clearly in the symphony.

The first three movements, it mustn't have been that far

away from his mind

after this massive haemorrhage.

But then the last two movements, he wrote

at the happiest time of his life

so it's a real emotional roller coaster, if you like, of a piece.

Interesting that it falls into what Mahler said

generally about the symphony.

This is a man who never wrote an opera but wrote

very operatic-style symphonies.

He felt the symphony had to be like the whole world,

that it should embrace everything,

so cow bells in the countryside, Viennese waltzes,

everything he heard and everything he witnessed and felt.

This is a man who pours his biography into his music.

Everything is in there.

Absolutely. It's such a treat to hear all five movements this evening

because more often than not, the Adagietto

is taken out as a little jewel in the crown.

But tonight we're seeing it fully set, if you like,

so it's a lovely moment to see the full symphony.

We were ear-wigging a bit on rehearsals earlier.

Which were the moments that really grabbed you

from what we're about to hear in this performance?

I certainly wouldn't want to be principal trumpet!

Principal trumpet opens the symphony

and it's a very difficult solo.

I can imagine he might get quite nervous.

It's a scary wobble. You don't want your lip to go at that point.

Or dry mouth!

Yeah, fantastically exposed opening solo.

I thought one of the interesting things was

Juanjo Mena, tonight's conductor,

who, during the Ravel, he really explores his Spanish side.

He's a man who I've seen flamenco before.

He's a dancey kind of guy. In the Mahler,

he is focused, concentrated.

There is this sense of forward motion of architecture

and just real seriousness of purpose.

He expects a lot from his orchestra

and he works them hard.

That's right. He really does.

Furthermore, I found it interesting

that in the fourth movement, the Adagietto,

he almost goes straight into the fifth movement,

which is this joyous outburst, which is wonderful.

I like the way he sculpted that beautifully.

APPLAUSE

Prepare yourself for over an hour of classical music

stretched to its very limits.

This is an emotional journey from tragedy to triumph and glory.

It's Mahler's Fifth Symphony.

APPLAUSE

Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony,

it's music of such breathtaking ambition and scope.

We heard it performed here at the Proms by the BBC Philharmonic

conducted by Juanjo Mena.

Leading the orchestra tonight, Daniel Bell.

A magnificent performance this evening,

rousing cheers from the Royal Albert Hall.

And bringing one of the many players in this orchestra to their feet,

such committed playing, fantastic opening solo from the trumpeter.

Must be physically exhausting, actually, for the orchestra.

It's such a monumental piece.

I know, 75 minutes of just searing, burning emotional intensity.

It's kind of obvious in a sense, the Adagietto,

it's the perfect soundtrack to a film, and when Visconti seized on it

in 1971, it just made that film Death In Venice an instant classic.

I heard this great story, actually.

A Hollywood producer said on watching the film, "I love the score."

"Who's this Mahler guy's agent?"

Mahler had in fact been dead 60 years.

"Get me Gustav on the phone, immediately!"

Well, tonight, the orchestra also played music

by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, a piece called Night's Black Bird,

which you can watch here on BBC Four next month

in a special programme celebrating the birthdays of Birtwistle

and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.

Meanwhile, that is all for tonight.

Don't forget you can watch Proms Extra.

Catch it tomorrow over on BBC Two.

It's been a pleasure to be with you here tonight, Suzy,

and we hope you've enjoyed it at home.

From all of us here at the Royal Albert Hall, for BBC Proms,

-good night.

-Good night.