Word: fleisher
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Many a first-rate pianist has taken up conducting as a career. For Leonard Bernstein, the late George Szell and Daniel Barenboim, it was largely a matter of having a large and effusive talent-or sheer ambition-that simply had to spread into other fields. When Pianist Leon Fleisher took the podium last week at Manhattan's Philharmonic Hall, however, it was a case of dire necessity. Though he was once the foremost pianist of his generation, his right hand has been partly crippled since 1965, and he is trying to establish himself in a new career...
After five years of tests and medical treatment, including physiotherapy and psychotherapy, Fleisher's doctors are still unable to come up with a cure. Indeed, they are not even sure of the cause. The official diagnosis is that Fleisher's malady much resembles writer's cramp. But what started as an occasional feeling of "pins and needles" in the fingers is now a cramped condition in which the fingers curl into the palm involuntarily. In the past six months, the trouble has become so bad that Fleisher, now 42, can barely sign his name...
...York debut showed that the conducting ranks can well profit by Fleisher's misfortune as a pianist. He had all the right instincts, and plenty of natural talent to communicate them. Leading the New York Chamber Orchestra in a program of Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, he demonstrated a smooth, supple rhythmic sense and ideas about the music that were definitely his own. As New York Times Music Critic Harold Schonberg put it: "Some conductors have worked for years on less...
...season (June 27 through Sept. 15) is made up of orchestral and chamber concerts, a short visit by the New York City Ballet, Daniel Barenboim's English Chamber Orchestra, a jazz-folk program and a wide selection of guest artists, including Pianists Alicia de Larrocha, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Leon Fleisher, Alexis Weissenberg and others of that caliber...
...their instruments (which the manufacturers lend out for concert use in exchange for the prestige that the pianists bring). Glenn Gould always played Steinway's No. 174; when it collapsed some years back, he was thrown into a deep depression. Gary Graffman, Eugene Istomin, Jacob Lateiner and Leon Fleisher at one time all craved Old 199, and they passed it around among themselves so that each could have it for major concerts. Dame Myra Hess used to think of her pianos as so many husbands, once cabled Steinway...