New Classical Tracks: The Joy of Mozart with a legendary pianist

As a musician, Leon Fleisher involves himself in as many aspects of music as possible. He's a performer, a conductor and a teacher. It's all about the music for this world-class pianist. Fleisher turned 81 this past summer and he's showing no signs of slowing down. Following a European tour, he packed his bags for a three-week trip through the United States and Canada. Then it's off to Japan to lead a Mozart conference.

"Mozart is one of the most satisfying people to play. It transports the soul, it transports the spirit," explains pianist Leon Fleisher, who recently recorded three concertos by Mozart. This new release opens with the effervescent piano concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414. What tickles Leon Fleisher about this concerto and virtually every work Mozart wrote is that the composer uses just the right amount of notes. Everything on the page has a purpose.

"If you look at his manuscripts," Fleisher clarifies, "they are absolutely clean in the sense that there's never a reason for him to cross out anything, or X out anything. With Mozart, what came out of his head and how it flowed from his head and his heart, through his arm into his hand onto the paper was a kind of perfection, just without flaw." Fleisher makes every note of this concerto sparkle, which makes this piece even more satisfying for the listener.

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488 is so simple, yet grandiose. The emotional impact of this concerto is enhanced by the delicate balance between soloist and orchestra, executed beautifully by Leon Fleisher and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.

"It's just, I think, one of his most sublime works," Fleisher says of Mozart's final piano concerto, "The slow movement is of unspeakable sadness, and yet it's written in a form that you might call a barcarolle. It's this 6/8 rhythm, that is very reminiscent of being in a gondola, being on the water. It has this kind of little lilt and swing to it. The combination of the sense of the movement, and the ineffable sadness to it, are just transcendent in feeling."

Fleisher began his career as a child prodigy, and went on to become one of the leading pianists of his generation. Then, more than 40 years ago, he was struck with a neurological disorder that prevented him from playing piano with both hands. He continued to perform works for left hand alone, and most importantly he continued to teach at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, where's he's been teaching now for more than half a century.

"I was a serious teacher long before I developed this focal dystonia," Fleisher explains, "I come from my love of teaching very legitimately, because my teacher obviously relished it, and to be perfectly honest, my greatest teacher--since leaving my teacher, Artur Schnabel--is the act of teaching. The teacher almost invariably learns more from that relationship than the student."

Fleisher married one of his students, and he and his wife, Katharine Jacobson Fleisher often perform together, as they do on this recording in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 7 in F Major. In this performance Fleisher serves as performer and conductor; he sits with his back to the audience, so he can face the orchestra, and his wife. Fleisher has a real soft spot for this concerto, and not just because he's performing it with his beautiful wife:

"I just think it's delightful, it's a very youthful work. That last movement of all things is a minuet, which usually in symphonies and four movement concertos is the third movement. But this is such an elegant, delightful, piquant movement and the slow movement is lyrical and beautiful, it's just one of his more delightful works, I think."

As I sit and listen to the way Leon Fleisher brings out the joy of Mozart I can't help but wonder: maybe playing Mozart is Leon Fleisher's fountain of youth?

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