By way of discursion before I try and answer the above query, I first became aware of Paul Wittgenstein in the mid-1970s indirectly from a Mrs Sydow
(probably not the correct spelling) who, with her daughter, ran the classical music record section of a well-known Glasgow bookshop (no longer in business). She was Polish. I presume her family were Poles who came to Glasgow just before or during the second world war. She was a great help to me when, as a teenager, my interest in classical music was blossoming. She told me her father-in-law had responsibility for hiding and protecting Chopin’s heart during the second world war from invading German forces. He had some position in a Polish music conservatory if I recall correctly. I once noticed, in the bibliography section of a book I had on Chopin, a book on Chopin by her father-in-law. In the early 2000s, I was appointed by the bookshop to give legal advice to it in relation to winding up one of its pension schemes. My client remembered Mrs Sydow with fond recollections when I mentioned her to him.
Mrs Sydow introduced me to the
Piano Concerto in D for left hand by Ravel, mentioning that in places it sounded as if two hands were playing. I already knew Ravel’s
G Major Concerto. On hearing the
D Major Concerto, I was bowled over and immediately loved the music. It remains one of my favourite Piano Concertos (and, indeed, pieces of music) and I have many recordings of it.
Since Mrs Sidow’s recommendation, I have been fascinated by works for left handed piano and orchestra. I have everything that Wittgenstein commissioned that has been recorded. In my opinion, there is nothing comparable in originality and musical power to the Ravel
Concerto. The nearest to it, in my opinion, is Britten’s
Diversions. The
Paragon zur Symphonia Domestica and
Panathenaenzug by Richard Strauss are attractive enough pieces as are the
Piano Concerto and
Beethoven Variations by Franz Schmidt and the
Concertos by Korngold and Bortkiewicz. Wittgenstein never played (in public) Prokoviev’s
Fourth Piano Concerto he commissioned nor Hindemith’s
Klaviermusik, which was only discovered in the early 2000s among Wittgenstein’s effects having been lost for years. The latest release of a work commissioned by Wittgenstein, to my knowledge, is the Karl Weigl
Piano Concerto. Wittgenstein, according to my information, never played the Weigl.
A couple of years ago I purchased a book by Alexander Waugh
The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War. The reason for purchase was to find out as much as I could about the various commissions (including those from Josef Labor among others). According to this book, the following is the case regarding the works he commissioned for left handed piano and orchestra from Josef Labor.
Labor’s first concertante work for Wittgenstein was a
Konzertstück completed in June 1915. It is in D Major and comprises of an introduction, five variations on an original theme, an intermezzo and a cadenza. Its intended premiere in Vienna was delayed due to Wittgenstein becoming a prisoner of war in a Russian POW camp. The premiere eventually took place in March, 1916 at a private concert in Vienna. The orchestral part was played on a second piano. Its first outing with full orchestra was on 12 December 1916 at the Grosser Musikvereinsaal with Oskar Nedbal conducting the Wiener Tonkünstler. Wittgenstein was soloist on both occasions. In 1917, on at least three other occasions, he performed the
Konzertstück (probably in Germany and what is now Poland and the Czech Repubilc). In honour of Labor’s eightieth birthday on 29th June 1922, Wittgenstein performed the
Konzertstück on 23rd June at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna with the Vienna Ladies’ Symphony Orchestra conducted by Julius Lehnert.
Labor composed two other concertante works for Wittgenstein: a second
Konzertstück in F Minor in 1917 and a third
Konzertstück in E Major in 1923. Unfortunately, Waugh’s book provides only the barest information on these.
A list in German of all commissions by Wittgenstein can be downloaded from:
http://waltercosand.com/CosandScores/Composers%20Q-Z/Wittgenstein,%20Paul/Werke_fuer_Paul_Wittgenstein_from_Singer,Lea-Konzert_fuer_die_linke_Hand-p.459-463.pdfAccording to the above (which purports to list all of Labor's works for Wittgenstein) the three Labor concertante works (in German) are:
Konzertstück mit Orchester in Form von Variationen in D-Dur, 1915 [premiered 15th June 1915
(Waugh's information differs - see above)]
Konzertstuck in f-Moll, 1917 [premiered 16th May 1917]
Konzertstück in Es-Dur, 1923 [no premiere date given]
My understanding is that these pieces have never been recorded.