Birmingham News Concert Review 3-30-09

Monday, March 30, 2009

Struggles don't deter from Leon Fleisher piano recital in Birmingham, Alabama MICHAEL HUEBNER News staff writer

Listening to a Leon Fleisher recital is like peering into his soul. Set aside the 80-year-old pianist's tragic illness that detoured his performing career for decades, and his triumphant return to two-handed performance in recent years. His solo recital Sunday, before a less than half-full Jemison Concert Hall, revealed a musician of thoughtful introspection and insight, as though each movement of each piece was a new revelation - not only for him, but for his listeners. Fleisher is not the same pianist who recorded the music on this recital in the 1950s. Because of his ongoing battle with focal hand dystonia, he has difficulty rattling off muscular octave patterns and intricate scales with crystalline accuracy. He clearly struggled in that regard in Brahms' Waltzes, Op. 39. What he has gained in a half century is an unflagging sense of rhythmic urgency and the ability to convey musical structure through touch, silence and purity of sound. Repeated phrases in Schubert's "Landler," D. 790, and that composer's Sonata in B flat major, D. 960 weren't mere repeats or echos, but subtle mood shifts, each brimming with discovery. In "Valses nobles et sentimentales," Fleisher capitalized on Ravel's witty rhythmic play with suave connections between the eight waltzes, fashioning a wide impressionistic canvas of gentle pastels. Most revealing were the inner melodies, often overlooked in performances of this work, that phased in and out of focus. Wrong notes or not, this reading topped dozens of others I've heard, including Fleisher's own 1958 recording. The opening movement of the Schubert sonata was shaped by profound pauses, an undulating bass and a melody that sang tenderly. The minor-key Andante played out like a poignant novella, complete with moments of major-key relief. By accepting his affliction, Fleisher appears to have transcended it. More important, he is using it to its best advantage - to genuinely inform each piece he plays with purpose and meaning. E-mail: [email protected]