{"id":19949,"date":"2014-08-13T21:33:18","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T01:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=19949"},"modified":"2014-08-29T21:09:50","modified_gmt":"2014-08-30T01:09:50","slug":"leon-fleisher-all-the-things-you-are-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=19949","title":{"rendered":"Leon Fleisher &#8211; All the Things You Are (CD Review)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/images.publicradio.org\/content\/2014\/07\/29\/20140729_leon-fleisher-all-the-things-you-are_43.jpg\" width=\"274\" height=\"274\" \/><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" id=\"docs-internal-guid-ef9f2c8e-d21e-ccc2-b17e-d64123886981\">Leon Fleisher<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">All the Things You Are<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Bridge Records CD 9429<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">At 85, pianist Leon Fleisher remains as compelling a musician as ever. Since the mid-1960s, due to battling an affliction called focal dystonia that affected two fingers on his right hand, Fleisher is best known for championing repertoire for the left hand alone. Thanks to advances in medical technology, in recent years he has sometimes returned to playing two-handed repertoire. But on his latest CD for Bridge Records, Fleisher presents a recital program that predominantly features left-handed pieces.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Brahms\u2019s transcription of the <em>Chaconne<\/em> from Bach\u2019s Violin Partita in D minor has become a centerpiece of Fleisher\u2019s live appearances; it is rendered here with nuance, suppleness, and exquisite shaping of the composition\u2019s large-scale architecture. <em>Musical Offerings<\/em>, three pieces written by George Perle to commemorate Fleisher\u2019s 70th birthday, are excellent examples of the composer\u2019s Bergian harmonic language and angular gestural palette. Quite rangy, they are never registrally confined, as pieces for left hand could tend to be. Inspired by Emily Dickinson\u2019s poem <em>Wild Nights<\/em> and Edna St. Vincent Millay\u2019s poem <em>Renascence<\/em>, <em>LH<\/em>, written by Leon Kirchner for Fleisher, is a beautiful chromatic essay, at turns tumultuous and lushly hued. Dina Koston\u2019s <em>Thoughts of Evelyn<\/em>, the sole two-handed work on the CD, pits rampant arpeggiations against short melodic fragments, building intricate textures and intriguing harmonies out of this deliberately limited set of materials. Federico Mompou\u2019s Prelude No. 6 meanders a bit in places, but also features rapturous moments filled with arcing melodies and luxuriant Neo-romantic harmonies.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The CD also contains two transcriptions of show tunes. Earl Wild\u2019s rendition of George Gershwin\u2019s \u201cThe Man I Love\u201d is hyper-romantic and another example of a left-handed piece that makes full use of the piano\u2019s compass to stirring effect. Fleisher\u2019s ability to separate out the various voices into melodic and accompanimental gestures really makes it \u2018sing.\u2019 The CD\u2019s title work, a famous song by Jerome Kern, is supplied a poignant arrangement by Stephen Prutsman. Fleisher plays it <em>molto legato<\/em>, employing a decent helping of <em>rubato<\/em>, but never allowing the song to seem cloying. It serves as an affectionately rendered and eloquent closer.<\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:34px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=19949\" send=\"false\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leon Fleisher All the Things You Are Bridge Records CD 9429 &nbsp; At 85, pianist Leon Fleisher remains as compelling a musician as ever. Since the mid-1960s, due to battling an affliction called focal dystonia that affected two fingers on his right hand, Fleisher is best known for championing repertoire for the left hand alone. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2962],"tags":[3271,3272,3270],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19949"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19950,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19949\/revisions\/19950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}