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Leon Fleisher
Ong Teng Cheong Visiting Professor in Music 2008/2009
One of the most dazzling and sublime pianists of his age, Leon Fleisher has triumphed in a career of uncommon breadth and drama. At the age of nine, Fleisher began studies with the great German pianist Artur Schnabel, made his New York Philharmonic debut at sixteen and was the first American to win the prestigious Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Competition in 1952. Fleisher was only fifteen when renowned conductor Pierre Monteux hailed him as "the pianistic find of the century." In a series of superb recordings with George Szell, he quickly established a formidable reputation in the works of the Viennese school – with revelatory performances that were as crisply imagined as they were perfectly executed – honoring a pedagogical lineage that traces all the way back to Beethoven himself. Fleisher's brilliant career was cut short by an early onset of focal dystonia in his right hand, which forced him to focus for many years on repertoire for piano left hand. In the past decade, following new forms of treatment and therapy, Fleisher has miraculously resumed his performance of two-hand literature. Praised in his early years for his poetic yet vigorous performances of works by the Viennese masters, the pianist naturally devoted his new disc of two-hand concertos to the music of Mozart, following his miraculous recovery from a neurological impairment of his right hand. His new recording of Mozart Piano Concertos is a welcome addition to Fleisher's distinguished catalogue of recordings available from Sony Masterworks. Fleisher was recently awarded the 2007 Kennedy Center Honors and was nominated for the 2006 Oscar short documentary, "Two Hands: The Leon Fleisher Story". |
