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Pianist Yeol Eum Son performs music of the period following World War I by Maurice Ravel and Paul Wittgenstein
Out May 16 on Naïve Classiques
Yeol Eum Son’s upcoming concert dates in North America include performances with the Austin Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa and Toronto, Colorado Music Festival, and a recital at Carnegie Hall.
“Yeol Eum Son had the ideal combination of technical abandon, lyrical control and power, which brought out the best in the music.” – Bachtrack
On May 16, Korean Pianist Yeol Eum Son, with the musicians of the Residentie Orkest The Hague and their musical director Anja Bihlmaier, releases her new album of works by Ravel and Bach on naïve classiques. The album includes works linked to the period immediately following World War I, including the two contrasting concertos of Maurice Ravel, and four rare arrangements of works by J. S. Bach by Paul Wittgenstein, the famous pianist who lost his right hand in the war and commissioned the Concerto for the Left Hand.
A few months after finishing his famous Boléro, Maurice Ravel set himself a new challenge: to bring together the two instruments that have always been at the heart of his main occupations, the piano and the orchestra. Two commissioners would ultimately help him: Serge Koussevitzky, the head of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and ardent advocate of the music of his time, and Paul Wittgenstein, a pianist born in Vienna in 1887 who, since losing his right hand on the front during a Russian offensive on Poland had worked to develop the repertoire dedicated to the left hand alone.
From the imagination of the French composer would emerge two works, at the same time diametrically opposed and complementary. The Concerto in G Major recalls Mozart’s purity, while the single movement Concerto in D Major is darkly evocative. The soloist – with his or her left hand alone – must confront an orchestra almost three times larger than in the other concerto, and almost inhuman technical challenges.
“Unlike the Concerto in G Major, all three sections of the Left-Hand Concerto are extremely difficult, with the middle section being the most difficult,” says Yeol Eum Son. “The biggest challenges for me were twofold. First, Ravel’s use of register: the left hand has to cover the whole keyboard, from top to bottom. It is already awkward enough for the left hand to play in the highest octave, but in addition there are endless wide jumps between two notes or chords. Second, the dynamics. Not only are you aiming to play the same dynamic range as you would with both hands but in addition, the size of the orchestra is almost twice as large as it is in the Concerto in G major. It feels like a constant battle between piano and orchestra.” However, she says, “Although far darker in mood, the Left-Hand Concerto is not at all sad, to me. Rather, its spirit wants to prove that one hand alone is enough to conquer the world.”
It took nearly two years for Yeol Eum Son to find the right works to pair with the Ravel concertos. She writes, “As a Korean citizen, I found it profoundly moving about recording these concertos in The Hague, with its Residentie Orkest, in this very city. To us, The Hague represents an important chapter in our nation’s early independence movements. These concertos are especially meaningful to me because the horrors of the Great War, which shook all of us despite being far apart, seem to be engraved in these pieces. Then, I felt that these pieces by J. S. Bach best represented such feelings. While they are not directly related to the two concertos, they were arranged for the left hand by the commissioner of the Concerto for the Left Hand, Paul Wittgenstein. HisSchool for the Left Hand is composed of three volumes: 1. Exercises (“Fingerübungen”), 2. Etudes (“Etüden”), 3. Transcriptions (“Bearbeitungen”). The four pieces by Bach on this album belong to the third volume. I regret that the world has ongoing wars, as I release this album. My only hope, as the pieces at the end of this album show us, is that we can soon see light at the end of such tunnels of darkness.”
TRACKLIST
RAVEL Concertos | Bach Wittgenstein
Yeol Eum Son, piano
Residentie Orkest The Hague
Anja Bihlmaier, conductor
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Piano Concerto in G Major, M. 83
I. Allegramente
II. Adagio assai
III. Presto
Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D major, M. 82
Lento – Allegro – Tempo primo – Allegro
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
The following pieces [5-8] are performed in the versions for piano left hand proposed by Paul Wittgenstein in the third part (Volume III, Nos. 1-4) of his School for the Left Hand (1957)
Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 846 (Das wohltemperierte Klavier I)
Prelude
Prelude in C minor, BWV 999
Partita No. 1 in B-flat major, BWV 825
VII. Gigue
Sonata for Flute and Harpsichord in E-flat major, BWV 1031
II. Siciliano
[The attribution of this sonata to J. S. Bach is still uncertain. It also bears the following number in the C. P. E. Bach catalogue: H. 545.]
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Select North American Concert Dates
April 11 & 12, 2025 – Austin Symphony Orchestra (Mozart Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat Major, K.482)
April 25 - 27, 2025 – Los Angeles Philharmonic (Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491)
May 14 & 15, 2025 – National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa (Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major)
May 16, 2025 – National Arts Centre Orchestra, Toronto (Mozart Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat Major, K.482)
July 24 & 25, 2025 – Colorado Music Festival Orchestra (Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, op. 37)
December 3, 2025 – Carnegie Hall Recital