ANTHOLOGY FOR THE LEFT HAND REPERTOIRE (first mondial recordings)

"After studying Maurice Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand, I became interested in researching works written for a single hand.

I was fascinated by the wonder of having the impression of hearing two hands, when only one was playing. I was fascinated by the creativity and writing tricks used by so many composers throughout the ages.

So, faced with the paucity of discography in this field, I decided, with the Ad Vitam records label, to embark on the adventure of recording the most beautiful and emblematic pieces in this repertoire, including works for solo piano, concertos with orchestra, chamber music, contemporary pieces and even film music... This anthology - the first of its kind in this field - takes you on a journey through all styles and all eras: 48 composers and 78 recorded works spanning three centuries of music !

When the ten volumes making up this anthology were released, and at the concerts I was able to give, I was delighted to note the very warm response from an audience that was curious and keen to discover a different way of playing the piano.

It is therefore a great satisfaction to be able to give greater visibility to these pieces, which, in addition to their immense musical quality, deliver a particularly strong message: behind each of these pieces, there is always a human story, an encounter, a particular context... Like Paul Wittgenstein, for example, the disabled wartime pianist who dedicated Maurice Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand. Thanks to his inventiveness and courage in the face of adversity, "the Man" can overcome any obstacle !

This richly poetic repertoire, as sensitive as it is virtuosic and spectacular, also demonstrates the immense possibilities of the left hand: thanks to the arrangement of its fingers, its natural flexibility and its powerful register in the lower registers of the keyboard, it can even make the piano sound like an orchestra !

I was also keen to include a DVD in this boxed set, because not only can you listen to this repertoire, you can 'watch' it too. Because her interpretation, which is naturally very different from two-handed playing, is astonishing, and requires special organisation and intense physical energy.

Maxime Zecchini