The Journey

Leon Fleischer is the extraordinary pianist who lost the use of his right hand to a neurological ailment in 1964 at the height of his career. Undaunted, he took up teaching, conducting, and performing the left-hand literature so brilliantly that it was hard to believe he was using only one hand. When he returned to two-handed playing after years of medical s and determined, arduous rehabilitation, the public greeted him not only as a great artist but a conquering hero. This disc is his second two-handed (the first, Two Hands, was released in 2004). The title refers to the journey of life which, Fleischer says, "matters more than the destinations." The program features works Fleischer had performed regularly before 1964 but never recorded. Now in his late 70s, Fleischer plays with patrician authority and an unfailing sense of structure and style. His technical mastery seems fully intact, his tone is beautiful and variable, his youthful vigor remarkable. His Bach is especially striking for its simple directness and the clarity of its texture and counterpoint. In the Capriccio "On the Departure of a Brother," a piece of real "program music," he brings out the lamentation and the humor; in the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue the build-ups are very dramatic, the runs carefully shaped. Chopin's "Berceuse" is dreamy and singing. Stravinsky's "Serenade" alternates percussive passages with sardonic "melodies," and includes a marathon perpetual motion. An early, relatively unfamiliar Mozart sonata is fussy and unspontaneous, but Beethoven's very familiar "Für Elise" is beautiful. Is Fleischer demonstrating how this lovely piece, all too frequently heard on student recitals and telephones, should really sound? --Edith Eisler

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