One Hand at a Time: 19 Pieces for Piano for Left-Hand or Right-Hand Only

Piano

Presented in this anthology are nineteen pieces for piano from eight American composers, written during the last half of the Twentieth Century - between 1950 and 1992. What brings these pieces together, of course, is that they are all written for a pianist using only one hand. Within this limitation the pieces span a range of styles, musical languages, and difficulties.

The first five pieces are drawn from two larger works. Ellis B. Kohs' Ten Two-Voice Inventions provides four pieces - two for left hand, two for right hand - and Halsey Stevens' For the Left Hand Alone is drawn from his Seventeen Piano Pieces.

Vivian Fine's The Flicker and Lionel Nowak's Practice Piece, both for the right hand, and Leon Stein's Toccata No. 3, for the left, are tour-de-forces of technical fireworks.

Otto Luening's Right Hand Path and Sydney Hodkinson's Minnie-Rag offer specific challenges for the single hand, requiring large leaps and consistent rhythmic drive.

Ellis B. Kohs' substantial recital work, the Etude-Variations (on a theme of Brahms), offers a thick and enticing harmonic language, and Samuel Wellman's Eight Waltzes close the anthology as attractive, easier offerings.