Disease, death, and other tragedies have never been a stranger to musicians: Beethoven and Mozart; Gershwin and Jacqueline Du Pre; Buddy Holly and Otis Redding -- for just a half-dozen examples.
When concert pianist Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm in World War I, it looked like the end of his career.
But Wittgenstein wouldn't accept that. Instead he commissioned piano works for one hand from several of Europe's leading composers. The most successful of these, Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand is the featured work on Mozart's Attic this week.
The series of the Schubert symphonies continues with No. 4. We'll hear a couple of sets of Medieval and Renaissance music, and we'll wrap up our foray into the Attic with the 1961 premiere recording of Poulenc's Gloria.
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