Three Degrees of Leon Fleisher
CD: The Essential Leon Fleisher
We spend a great portion of our lives either trying to recapture things, or setting up things to achieve. And in doing so, we often fail to live the now. Leon Fleisher
I'm getting a little tired of the media's constant emphasis on intergenerational warfare these days -- newer, louder, faster, younger! As if there's any substitute for experience.
Moreover, delving into genealogy has not only given me an appreciation for the past, it's deepened my sense of how relationships and influences bridge the centuries. It was just a few years ago, for instance, that I realized that a particular great aunt I'd known in my childhood was the youngest daughter of my Irish great-great-grandfather -- a man born in 1828!
The pianist Leon Fleisher could almost be the poster child (well, man) for the power of relationships and influences across the centuries. During his childhood he became the pupil of the great Artur Schnabel -- which puts Fleisher at about three degrees of separation from Beethoven and one from Brahms -- and launched his concert career at age 16 in a little place called Carnegie Hall. The legendary recordings of the Brahms and Beethoven concerti with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra followed.
But Fleisher is also, paradoxically, an example both of playing the cards life deals you and refusing to take no for an answer.
By now the story of Fleisher's decades-long struggle with focal dystonia -- which for many years cost him the use of his right hand, and consequently the concert pieces with which he had made his career -- has been chronicled everywhere from to , and so have his subsequent pursuits as conductor and educator.
Some of you are already shifting uncomfortably in front of your computers right now. Is this some treacly inspirational tale, Hagman?
Well, I'll attempt to avoid the maudlin. The story is this simple and this complicated: Leon Fleisher pursued not only the but of course his careers at the Peabody Institute and the Kennedy Center. And to the joy of stubborn people everywhere, over the years he sought a diagnosis and treatment for his disability, eventually made the right connections, and regained the use of his right hand, and with a richer existence in the concert hall and recording studio.
Many in our Olsson's community will recall what was a joyous time it was when Fleisher's Two Hands, a warmly received album of solo works for piano, arrived in stores several years ago.
Area fans will be pleased to hear that not only is Fleisher still performing, not only is he celebrating his his 80th birthday, but he's going to do both locally: He's scheduled for a special concert, an all-Mozart program, this Thursday at the .
But you won't want to miss experiencing the phases of Fleisher's career via this two-disc set, The Essential Leon Fleisher. Disc 1 will knock you out of your seats (It's got the Allegro from Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, done with Szell, of course), and by the time you've recovered for Disc 2, it's time for the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1. Woo-hoo!
The set is much more, however, than a hint at what Fleisher accomplished in his youth. The selected recordings date from the '50s, '60s, '70s, and '90s (No '80s or aughties!) and represent both the traditional two-handed repertoire and works for left hand. Just listen to what happens as you drift from the beguiling Adagio from Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor and into the wild ride of Korngold's Suite for Two Violins, Cello and Piano Left Hand. Jaime Laredo, Yo-Yo Ma, and Joseph Silverstein join him for the latter track.
But the Essential set and even recent albums such as Two Hands and The Journey are not the end of the story. Last December found Leon Fleisher at the Kennedy Center Honors -- a not unexpected fate for a man with such a rich musical career. It had to have been a proud moment when his former student Jonathan Biss, another talented pianist, took the stage to pay tribute with a performance of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy.
The event was not without certain ironic and provocative touches, though. For instance, Fleisher, who has to some degree been pummeled by fate, shared the evening with fellow honoree Martin Scorsese, who makes movies in which people are pummeled by actual fists.
And the provocative bits? Well, there was that epic struggle between Fleisher's personal and political impulses, in our local paper well after everyone had put the holiday finery away. I'd say just I'm glad he came to the party, and that we still have a lot to learn from this lion of classical music.
We spend a great portion of our lives either trying to recapture things, or setting up things to achieve. And in doing so, we often fail to live the now. Leon Fleisher
I'm getting a little tired of the media's constant emphasis on intergenerational warfare these days -- newer, louder, faster, younger! As if there's any substitute for experience.
Moreover, delving into genealogy has not only given me an appreciation for the past, it's deepened my sense of how relationships and influences bridge the centuries. It was just a few years ago, for instance, that I realized that a particular great aunt I'd known in my childhood was the youngest daughter of my Irish great-great-grandfather -- a man born in 1828!
The pianist Leon Fleisher could almost be the poster child (well, man) for the power of relationships and influences across the centuries. During his childhood he became the pupil of the great Artur Schnabel -- which puts Fleisher at about three degrees of separation from Beethoven and one from Brahms -- and launched his concert career at age 16 in a little place called Carnegie Hall. The legendary recordings of the Brahms and Beethoven concerti with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra followed.
But Fleisher is also, paradoxically, an example both of playing the cards life deals you and refusing to take no for an answer.
By now the story of Fleisher's decades-long struggle with focal dystonia -- which for many years cost him the use of his right hand, and consequently the concert pieces with which he had made his career -- has been chronicled everywhere from to , and so have his subsequent pursuits as conductor and educator.
Some of you are already shifting uncomfortably in front of your computers right now. Is this some treacly inspirational tale, Hagman?
Well, I'll attempt to avoid the maudlin. The story is this simple and this complicated: Leon Fleisher pursued not only the but of course his careers at the Peabody Institute and the Kennedy Center. And to the joy of stubborn people everywhere, over the years he sought a diagnosis and treatment for his disability, eventually made the right connections, and regained the use of his right hand, and with a richer existence in the concert hall and recording studio.
Many in our Olsson's community will recall what was a joyous time it was when Fleisher's Two Hands, a warmly received album of solo works for piano, arrived in stores several years ago.
Area fans will be pleased to hear that not only is Fleisher still performing, not only is he celebrating his his 80th birthday, but he's going to do both locally: He's scheduled for a special concert, an all-Mozart program, this Thursday at the .
But you won't want to miss experiencing the phases of Fleisher's career via this two-disc set, The Essential Leon Fleisher. Disc 1 will knock you out of your seats (It's got the Allegro from Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, done with Szell, of course), and by the time you've recovered for Disc 2, it's time for the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1. Woo-hoo!
The set is much more, however, than a hint at what Fleisher accomplished in his youth. The selected recordings date from the '50s, '60s, '70s, and '90s (No '80s or aughties!) and represent both the traditional two-handed repertoire and works for left hand. Just listen to what happens as you drift from the beguiling Adagio from Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor and into the wild ride of Korngold's Suite for Two Violins, Cello and Piano Left Hand. Jaime Laredo, Yo-Yo Ma, and Joseph Silverstein join him for the latter track.
But the Essential set and even recent albums such as Two Hands and The Journey are not the end of the story. Last December found Leon Fleisher at the Kennedy Center Honors -- a not unexpected fate for a man with such a rich musical career. It had to have been a proud moment when his former student Jonathan Biss, another talented pianist, took the stage to pay tribute with a performance of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy.
The event was not without certain ironic and provocative touches, though. For instance, Fleisher, who has to some degree been pummeled by fate, shared the evening with fellow honoree Martin Scorsese, who makes movies in which people are pummeled by actual fists.
And the provocative bits? Well, there was that epic struggle between Fleisher's personal and political impulses, in our local paper well after everyone had put the holiday finery away. I'd say just I'm glad he came to the party, and that we still have a lot to learn from this lion of classical music.
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