A Tale Of Two Hands

This is the remarkable tale of two hands: the two hands of Leon Fleisher. He was a great concert pianist, and a child prodigy who might have become the most famous American pianist of all time.

But in 1965, it all seemed to end abruptly, when Fleisher's right hand was gripped by a mysterious affliction. Like a hero from a Greek tragedy, he was struck down in his prime.

"When the gods want to strike, they know where to strike," says Fleisher. "They struck me in my hand."

Fleisher uses only one half of what most pianists have to work with. And yet, he can still fill a room with an eruption of intricate notes. He's now 76. But he began playing the piano at 4, and took to it instinctively.

He was the second son of Isidor and Bertha Fleisher, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who settled in San Francisco. His father's business was to make hats. His mother's business was to make her son a great concert pianist.

"That's the extraordinary synchronicity of my life," says Fleisher. "A mother's wish for her child actually coinciding with the gift of the child."

But in order for that gift to grow, 11-year-old Fleisher needed to study in New York. So the Fleisher family moved in 1939. "My dad gave up his business in San Francisco, moved to New York and re-established themselves," he says.

Did it bother him that his parents moved so their son could be a success? "Yeah. Disruption," says Fleisher. "That's a terrible burden for a kid to bear."

But Fleisher was ready to prove that his family's sacrifices would pay off. At 16, he walked onto music's most famous stage, Carnegie Hall, to perform with the New York Philharmonic symphony orchestra.

Does he remember what he played? "D minor Brahms, first Brahms piano concerto," says Fleisher. "With Pierre Monteux, guest conductor."

The Nov. 20, 1944, issue of Newsweek magazine had this to say about Fleisher: "As the youngster made his way through the extremely long and extremely ungrateful Brahms D minor piano concerto, every critic in the house immediately recognized that here was no ordinary, youthful debutante of average promise."

"It was wonderful," says Fleisher, who was 16 when he performed at Carnegie Hall. His mother was there with him as well. "I think she was terribly proud. Terribly."

Fleisher had fulfilled his mother's dreams. He then moved to Europe to explore on his own. It was the Cold War and even classical musicians were being enlisted. In 1952, with Soviets dominating international music competitions, Fleisher entered a major contest as a representative of the United States. He won.

Soon, offers from orchestras began pouring in. "Leon Fleisher was one of the darlings of all the great conductors," says Leonard Slatkin, the conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. "With Leon, you're overwhelmed with the thought that goes into the playing, and this incredible sound that comes out of the instrument."

That sound was captured in a series of celebrated recordings Fleisher made with conductor George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra.

In 1963, they were planning a tour, sponsored by the State Department, of the Soviet Union and Europe, but something wasn't right.

"I noticed this kind of sluggishness in my fifth and fourth finger of my right hand," says Fleisher. "So I figured, 'Well, I better get back to work, work harder,' which is the worst thing I could have done."

His intense practicing was causing further damage. His fingers were curling up, and he couldn't will them to uncurl. "I knew I couldn't play with my right hand," says Fleisher. "My life was virtually over."

No doctor could tell him what was wrong. He fell into a deep depression, his marriage broke up, and he retreated into a social and musical isolation. "Absolute despair," says Fleisher. What did he think his life was going to be? "I didn't really know," says Fleisher. "I had no idea how I would support my family. Teaching seemed to be the only answer."

So he threw himself into teaching at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. And, he found a new love, teaching, that continues to this day. He also tried conducting, and found that he loved that as well.

And then something remarkable happened. He ventured into a dusty corner of the piano literature, where he found pieces written exclusively for the left hand. Long before Fleisher, there was Paul Wittgenstein, a wealthy Austrian concert pianist who lost his right arm in World War I. "He commissioned the great composers of his day to write music for left hand and orchestra," says Fleisher. "And God bless him."

That music for the left hand allowed Fleisher to resume his concert career, but he still ached over the loss of his right hand.

Every day, he sat down at the piano to test it, and every day, his fingers failed him. He says it went on for 35 years. Did he have hope? "I never lost that, for some reason," says Fleisher. "It seemed to be too whimsical. How can this stay this way?"

He tried every possible remedy for his right hand, from A to Z, from aromatherapy to Zen Buddhism. One thing that seemed to help was Rolfing, a deep tissue massage.

Fleisher heard about some research being done at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

After more than three decades, doctors were finally able to give Fleisher a name for his problem: dystonia. Fleisher's brain sends faulty signals to his fingers, telling them to contract. Then, doctors use special needles to precisely identify the problem nerve. And then, they inject something (botox) that blocks those faulty signals and uncurls Fleisher's fingers.

"I have the smoothest forearms in the business," says Fleisher, who comes back to NIH every six months for this experimental treatment. But recently, he came back for a different reason. He played a little piece by Chopin at NIH. The song was a tribute to his mother.

His personal life has also changed. For the last 22 years, he's been married to a former student, Katherine Jacobson. "To this day, I have students and teachers at Peabody speaking about Leon as a god," says Katherine. "You know, 'You're married to a god.' And I say, 'Well, yes, but I do God's laundry.' He's awesome as a musician, but he is mortal."

Fleisher knows he's far from cured. The gods have not fully restored what they so cruelly took away. He still cannot trust his right hand.

"I have to spend a large part of my awareness in positioning my hand, in computing how to deal with the next note," says Fleisher.

Does that get in the way of interpretation?

"It can. That's what distresses me. It can," says Fleisher.

Yet, he is determined to test his hands, and himself. He returned to the recording studio for an album: "Two Hands." It was the first time in 40 years he could use that title. And now, he is returning to the concert stage for the ultimate test. He is rehearsing Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra.

"This is a big work to come back to," says Slatkin.

It is 39 minutes of some of the most famous and formidable music ever written for piano. "Easily, he could have played any number of works where the demands are physically not as strenuous as this particular piece," says Slatkin.

And so, before a sellout crowd at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Fleisher's right hand finally and triumphantly joined his left at its rightful place on the piano keyboard.

Concert invitations are coming in from around the world, but the Fleisher's story doesn't end on the concert stage. Ultimately, it's a personal tale about one man, 88 keys, two hands and a lifelong passion for music.

"I think that music nourishes that part of us that differentiates us from all other life on the planet," says Fleisher. "That makes us human beings, that makes us potentially noble, giving, generous, caring, creatures."