Fleisher entered a clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health, where doctors told him that an injection of botulinum toxin, better known as Botox, might loosen his muscles.Ī day after his shot, Fleisher recalls, “I knew it had worked. He also learned about research into focal dystonia, a condition in which the brain misfires and tells muscles to contract when they shouldn’t. In the early ‘90s, he gained some relief through Rolfing, a form of deep-tissue manipulation. Meanwhile, he tried every possible remedy, including surgery and aromatherapy. Whether he was optimistic, compulsive, bullheaded - or all of the above - Fleisher sat at the piano and tested his fingers every day for three decades. The latter devised a double concerto for Fleisher and his friend Gary Graffman, whose career also had been sidetracked by an impaired hand. Soon pieces were written for Fleisher as well, by composers including Lukas Foss and William Bolcom. The best-known works had been commissioned by the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost an arm in World War I but was wealthy and well-connected enough to engage the likes of Britten, Hindemith, Prokofiev, Ravel and Richard Strauss. The score is a living, breathing thing.”įleisher also began to perform the intriguing if limited repertoire written for the left hand. “One thing I learned from him is his tremendous respect for the score, which he believes doesn’t have to translate to something dry. Fleisher can express his ideas in a way that is very clear and very moving at the same time,” says the 26-year-old concert pianist Jonathan Biss, who studied with Fleisher for four years. His illness made him a better teacher, he explains, “because I could no longer push a student off his chair and say, ‘This is the way it should sound.’ ” He had to become more creative yet more precise in describing the intangibles that help someone learn to play music from the inside out. While he and his wife raised two children in Baltimore (he has three children from that marriage, his first), he pursued an impressive concert schedule and was anointed one of the most gifted of a gifted generation of young pianists, especially after he made landmark recordings of Brahms and Beethoven concertos with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. “That made me very serious,” he says, which meant that he started practicing as much as eight hours a day.įor a dozen years, Fleisher’s career flourished. “Everything I do in music pretty much stems from him,” says Fleisher, referring to their shared love of the Austro-Germanic repertoire, passion for teaching and belief that exposing the essence of a piece trumps achieving technical perfection.Įven though he made his New York Philharmonic debut when he was 16, the young Fleisher felt like an outsider compared with his conservatory-trained contemporaries: “They were the AFL and the NFL, and I was almost like Canadian football.” He proved a few things to himself and others when he became the first American to win Belgium’s Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in 1952. It gives one a sense of perspective, if not proportion.” “My variegated 78 years of life condensed into 16 minutes. “It’s amazing,” says Fleisher, who will perform Schubert sonatas with violinist Jaime Laredo at UCLA on Saturday. In fact, Fleisher and his second wife were rearing their two children in Baltimore then. ![]() 18 Arts & Music section said that when his career was beginning to flourish, he and his first wife were rearing two of their three children in Baltimore. Leon Fleisher: An article about pianist Leon Fleisher in the Feb. ![]() Los Angeles Times Sunday FebruHome Edition Main News Part A National Desk 1 inches 54 words Type of Material: Correction In fact, Fleisher and his second wife were raising their two children in Baltimore then. Leon Fleisher: An article about pianist Leon Fleisher last Sunday incorrectly said that when his career was beginning to flourish, he and his first wife were raising two of their three children in Baltimore. Los Angeles Times Sunday FebruHome Edition Sunday Calendar Part E Calendar Desk 1 inches 49 words Type of Material: Correction Leon Fleisher: An article about pianist Leon Fleisher in Sunday’s Arts & Music section incorrectly said that when his career was beginning to flourish, he and his first wife were raising two of their three children in Baltimore. Los Angeles Times Wednesday FebruHome Edition Main News Part A National Desk 1 inches 53 words Type of Material: Correction
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