THE CONCERT HALL surged with excitement as two men in evening dress walked onto the stage of Paris’s Salle Pleyel. On this January evening in 1933, the audience hushed with anticipation as composer Maurice Ravel raised his baton before the orchestra. The other man, Paul Wittgenstein, sat at the grand piano, the right sleeve of his tail coat hanging empty at his side. For the first time, anywhere, Ravel would conduct his Concerto for the Left Hand, with Wittgenstein as pianist.
Paul Wittgenstein had been born into an upper-class Austrian family on November 5, 1887. He grew up in a mansion full of activity and music. His great-uncle, Josef Joachim, was a famous violinist, and as a youth Wittgenstein often accompanied him
