Word: fleisher
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...friend suggested that he shave off his beard and call himself Noel Rehsielf, which is his name spelled backward. But Leon Fleisher said he would go on, which is no spelled backward. To demonstrate to the world that, after 17 years, he could once again range up and down a piano keyboard with both hands, he chose the most visible occasion he could find: the inauguration last week of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's $23 million Joseph Meyerhoff Hall...
Still, the unspoken question was palpable in the opening-night audience: Could he do it? The answer resounded through the new hall like a message from Olympus. After nearly two decades, Fleisher, once acclaimed the most talented pianist of his generation, had returned to the ranks. If at times he seemed a bit too rushed, eager to get through what must have been an ordeal as well as a triumph, the clarity and intelligence of his pianism were unmistakable...
...problem first appeared in 1964 when Fleisher noticed a peculiar sensation hi his forearm. By 1965 he found himself incapable of playing at all; he had lost control of his right fingers. During the years that followed he tried almost every known treatment, consulting doctors, hypnotists and psychotherapists. A child prodigy, Fleisher had been pushed hard by his parents. Some part of his psyche, went one theory, was rebelling against the emotional pressure...
There were periods of extreme depression, but Fleisher slowly built a new life without the right hand. He still made occasional appearances onstage, playing the few pieces written for the left hand. He learned the joys of conducting, and he greatly increased his teaching schedule. He is a professor at Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory of Music. Still, he says, "I never totally counted myself out. The feeling that I would some day be able to use both hands again kept me going...
...patience was rewarded. His friend and fellow pianist Gary Graffman was suffering from a similar problem and had found sympathetic and helpful doctors at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. The doctors, Fred Hochberg, a neurologist, and Robert Leffert, an orthopedic surgeon, examined Fleisher and determined that he was suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome, a condition that occurs when swollen tissue presses against a major nerve that transmits feeling to the hand. Fleisher was operated on in January 1981 to relieve the nerve. A few months later he began follow-up treatment, a powerful and sometimes painful application of pressure...