Performing piano music for one hand

[ilu]

According to performing technique, what is your opinion regarding playing some composition for one hand (either left or right) with 2H?

Thank you.

ILU

[HullandHellandHalifax]

According to performing technique, what is you opinion regarding playing some composition for one hand (either left or right) with 2H?

Thank you.

ILU

It's not cricket old chap and one shouldn't do it.
Apart from the technical side the whole point is the challenge of trying to make one hand deceive the public, which it nearly always does and playing the piece with two hands makes a mockery of the music because the composer knows what to expect when he wrote it and expects that from a performance, besides what pleasure do you deride from playing a one-handed piece with two hands.
No most definitely don't do it.
best wishes
Brian

[rob]

According to performing technique, what is you opinion regarding playing some composition for one hand (either left or right) with 2H?

Thank you.

ILU

Surely the composer's intentions should be followed absolutely strictly if you intend seriously to study a piece so written or if you intend to perform it. When such a piece is imagined, the whole creative process uses the physical effort involved in the supposed performance as the central stimulus to the act of composition. This way the music breathes as the composer intended. To perform a work intended for one hand only with both hands is not just cheating, it is an act of corruption turning the work into something very specifically that the composer neither sanctioned nor wanted.

To take an example: Ravel's brilliant Left Hand Concerto. It should sound as though it takes a great deal of effort to play. Playing it with two hands removes a whole vital layer of the work, corrupting the whole and rendering it incapable of conveying the composer's message.

Rob

[ilu]

Thanks for your wise opinions confirming that the scores for one hand must be played strictly as composed, facing all the challenges, according to the intention, and the limitations or circumstances of the author.

ILU

[Arjuna]

Surely there is no moral issue here (I'm not sure if that's what the other replies were implying). My feeling is, however, that a work composed for one hand will always sound better if played with one hand, than if played with two (unless, of course, you can make your two hands sound like one. But that would be even more difficult than making one sound like two. Why bother?).

[HullandHellandHalifax]

Surely there is no moral issue here (I'm not sure if that's what the other replies were implying). My feeling is, however, that a work composed for one hand will always sound better if played with one hand, than if played with two (unless, of course, you can make your two hands sound like one. But that would be even more difficult than making one sound like two. Why bother?).

Hi arjuna,
you are perfectly correct in your assumption, there is no moral issue here, it would be though if a performer played a piece for one hand in public with two hands. As you say I am sure it would be very difficult indeed to make a one-hand piece played using two hands sound like a one-hand piece, and that surely is what it is all about.
regards
Brian

[Richard0428]

I'm rather late coming across this thread (easily missed down the bottom of the Index!), but (my 10 cents worth), the 'moral' issue aside (whether to 'cheat' or not is a decision we all have to make ourselvelves), I don't think the issue is quite as simple as saying that all music written for one hand would not sound 'right' if played by two. It depends on the circumstances of the composition. The Ravel L.H. piano concerto is a perfect choice, I think, for arguing that music written for one hand should only be played by one hand. Part of the music's enormous drama and tension stems from the sffort of playing all the notes with just five fingers.
On the other hand, although yes, I suppose it's really not cricket, playing something like Scriabin's op. 9 Prelude and Nocturne with two hands, it won't affect the 'sound' the composer was trying to create playing in the pieces by usiong 10, rather than just 5, fingers. After all, Scriabin did write it primarily (I recall: hope I'm not mistaken!) because he'd injured his right hand, yet still wanted to play something lusciously romantic with the other while he recuperated. The limitation to one hand was due to necessity, and (unlike the Ravel or Prokofiev concerto's, for instance) not part of the design of the pieces' characters. For sure the pieces fit well for the left hand, but work just as well for less advanced pianists using both (I often use the Prelude as teaching material for beginning students, and they love its rich, romantic character, especially as with two hands it's fairly easy to play).

[rob]

I like your observation Richard - just as I like Arjuna's clever observation too. I was being an absolutist of course! And I still stand by what I wrote. But yes, the circumstances of the composition and the composer's and player's intentions do rather come into account. Your Scriabin example is certainly a perfect case where short of a public performance it barely matters if it means someone is able to enjoy the music (with two hands) which otherwise might not be possible to tackle (with just one hand).

[fredbucket]

On the other hand, although yes, I suppose it's really not cricket, playing something like Scriabin's op. 9 Prelude and Nocturne with two hands, it won't affect the 'sound' the composer was trying to create playing in the pieces by usiong 10, rather than just 5, fingers.

Actually it does. I've been playing the op9 ever since I was quite young - I remember being gently corrected by my music teacher when I started playing it with two hands . The sonority of the piece is paramount here - how the sound is built up and sustains over a period of time, and that is very much dependent upon how the left hand operates - it is totally different with two hands (I've tried it).

I've very much of Rob's view that pieces for the LH should be played with the LH, and vice versa.

Regards
Fred

[Arjuna]

I'm reminded here of Godowsky's introduction to the 53 paraphrases on Chopin etudes, where he points out that the left hand is actually very well suited to playing alone since the stronger fingers (1 & 2) are up the top and therefore able to bring out the melody more easily.
I actually wonder, also, if composing a work for the left (or right) hand alone, at the piano, would produce a different kind of work to one composed for the left or right hand away from the piano. I mean in terms of which, and how many, hands can play it.
It's hard to imagine a composer who is so in tune with the instrument that they could predict those subtle differences without actually hearing them... I could be wrong though.