By Harris Goldsmith

“The pianistic find of the century,” declared Pierre Monteux of the teenage Leon Fleisher. The eminent French conductor had accompanied the 15- year-old musician’s concerto debut, playing the Liszt A-major, in his hometown of San Francisco during the 1943- 44 season. A year later, the two collaborated again, this time in the monumental D-minor Concerto of Brahms—first in San Francisco and then at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic for Fleisher’s local debut, on November 4, 1944. Monteux, an exacting judge of musical ability, was joined by several influential critics in predicting a great future for the young pianist. Yet they could hardly have known how heroic his career would be.

Born on July 23, 1928, Fleisher began his piano studies at age 4 with local pedagogues, including Lev Schorr, who was esteemed as a builder of prodigies. By age 7, the boy was ready to give his first full recital. Two years later, the legendary Artur Schnabel, who as a rule refused to teach children, accepted young Fleisher as his youngest pupil. Working with Schnabel in Lake Como, Italy, and later in New York, the young musician’s values were demonstrably shaped by the older pianist’s dynamic tutelage and profound philosophy.

The association with Schnabel, hugely beneficial for the most part, did present a few obstacles to Fleisher’s embryonic career: When he was invited to perform Gershwin’s Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue at the Hollywood Bowl, Schnabel (who shared the typical prejudice against jazz and American music endemic to many German refugee musicians) forbade his gifted student to accept the engagement.

In May 1952, Fleisher entered the daunting Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Concours. During the finals, while playing the Brahms D minor (by now a specialité de maison), a string broke loudly but Fleisher continued unperturbed and won First Prize, the first American to take top honors at an international competition (this, six years before Van Cliburn and Moscow).

After Fleisher’s big win, Columbia Masterworks offered him a recording contract, and he made his debut on that label playing Schubert’s posthumous B-flat Sonata and a group of Ländler. Subsequent recordings appeared on Columbia’s sister label, Epic: works by Brahms, more Schubert, Liszt, Weber, Mozart, Debussy, Ravel, Hindemith’s Four Temperaments, and an anthology of contemporary piano music by Ned Rorem, Roger Sessions, and Leon Kirchner (whose Second Piano Concerto Fleisher introduced in 1963, with the composer conducting the Seattle Symphony).

George Szell, also an Epic artist, invited Fleisher to record an extensive series of concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra, and after some initial trepidation the offer was accepted. They began with Franck’s Symphonic Variations and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and eventually endisced the Schumann and Grieg, both Brahms, the five by Beethoven and, perhaps the jewel of the series, Mozart’s No. 25 in C major, K. 503. Tchaikovsky’s B-flat minor was also proposed but never made (much to Fleisher’s regret—he has always had special affection for the work).

And then tragedy struck. I vividly recall a Fleisher performance of Mozart’s D-minor Concerto, K. 466, in which the brittle-sounding passagework of the finale had the unmistakable symptoms of excessive muscular tension. And after a similarly strained delivery of the “Spring” Sonata during a Beethoven cycle with Tassy Spivakovsky, Fleisher himself confided to this writer that he was experiencing some alarming pains in his right hand. A forthcoming European tour with Szell and the Cleveland was put on hold and then canceled. A mysterious ailment, later identified as carpal tunnel syndrome, had put an apparent end to a flourishing artist’s career—certainly the biggest blow to American pianism since William Kapell’s demise in an airplane crash a dozen years earlier.

For one with less inner resources, such a misfortune could have been the end. Fleisher, however, was determined to make music, and the courage he has shown since 1965 must be ranked with that of the illustrious violinist Rudolph Kollisch, who taught himself to play left-handed after a hand injury. He set about mastering a new repertory for the left hand alone and took up conducting. In 1968, he became director of the Theatre Chamber Players in Washington, D.C.

But, for many, Fleisher’s greatest achievement has been as a teacher. He had already joined the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory in 1959. Fleisher’s philosophy builds upon Schnabel’s ideas about rhythm and spacial organization—that note values, silences, and structural units must be exaggerated in performance in order to bring music to vivid life. But Fleisher, much more than Schnabel, brings a turbulent physicality to this ideal. At a master class, in one of the Brahms Handel Variations, he demonstrated how he wanted a certain resistance to the direction in which a phrase was moving: Citing the analogy of a driver moving the steering wheel to make a sharp right, he reminded his charge that, as the vehicle veers to the right, the driver’s body will move to the left. That unforgettable dichotomy encapsulated Fleisher’s musical dynamism to perfection.

Fleisher has been in such demand as a teacher that he generally prefers to give master classes and teach his private students in group style (as Schnabel also liked to do). Director of the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood since 1986, Fleisher has recently been traveling to Japan to conduct the Toho Music School’s student orchestra. He returned to his old record company (now renamed Sony Classical) and is slated to give us a generous sampling of the lefthand repeltory (the first disc, including works by Ravel, Britten, and Prokofiev, with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was issued last year).

Fleisher’s many admirers, and—even more importantly—the pianist himself, have not given up hope for a resumption as a mainstream artist. On September 16, 1982, he attempted a two-hand comeback, playing the Franck Symphonic Variations with the Baltimore Symphony (of which he was associate conductor from 1973 to 1978) and also, by way of an encore, Chopin’s D-flat Nocturne, Op. 27, No. 2. While the performances were superb, he himself felt that he was not yet ready for a full-fledged return. He gives two-hand demonstrations at lessons, and, with new surgery and muscular therapy, his right hand continues to gain stamina. How wonderful if he were to return to the repertory he loves most—Beethoven, Mozart , Schubert et al.—with all those years of acquired wisdom and humanity. Still, this brave and inspired musician has triumphed over adversity, becoming a role model for us all. With pleasure and appreciation, Musical America honors this immensely important American artist as 1994 Instrumentalist of the Year.

The noted pianist, teacher, and music critic Harris Goldsmith currently writes for The Strad and other publications. He was a longtime contributing editor toHigh Fidelity, Keynote, and Musical America, among many other magazines. His chamber-music and solo recordings have been released on RCA, Crossroads, and Musical Heritage, and are currently available on CD on the Music and Arts, Stradivari Classics, and Musical Heritage labels.