New Classical Tracks: A Record of Reminiscences

"I just want to be a musician, I want to be a good dad to my five kids and two grandchildren and a decent husband. And that's about it."

Rich ambitions, clearly. And though we can't speak to the family component, Leon Fleisher has fulfilled his musical ambitions to an extraordinary degree. Fleisher turned 86 last week: a pianist, a conductor, a chamber player, and to his many students with whom he's worked for more than 50 years at the Peabody Conservatory, he's Obi-Wan Kenobi, a master teacher. And he has a new solo recording.

All the Things you Are, is Fleisher's first in nearly a decade. "It comprises mostly music that was written for me," he explains, "I've been the beneficiary of the talents and gifts of some of the finest composers of the 20th century and even of the 21st century, although 21st century is not on this record. But they've written music for me and I've been mightily flattered by that kind of attention, if you will. And I thought that some of it at least the stuff that I can play today should be on record.

"And then, secondarily, one of my former students, Stephen Prutzman, well, he got I think his first two degrees with me here in Baltimore at Peabody. And he made an arrangement for me of the Jerome Kern tune, 'All The Things You Are', for left hand alone, for five fingers. And it's so beautiful. It's really very, very special so I included that on the record."

Another jazz-inspired piece on this recording is an arrangement for left hand by another piano legend. "Earl Wild was a phenomenal pianist," Fleisher recalls. "There was nothing that he could not play on the piano. He made this arrangement of The Man I Love by Gershwin, which is beautiful. Again, it's a wonder in a way to see or to hear how music can be arranged for five fingers. I think it was Lukas Foss who said, 'Give great geniuses limitations, put limits on what they can do and it stirs up their creative juices.' And I think in each of these cases, certainly in the case of … the musical offerings by George Pearl that he wrote for me, I think falls under that definition."

George Pearl composed that set of Musical Offerings following a turbulent time in Fleisher's life. "Yes. Well, this was at a time in my life and in the life of the Tanglewood Music Center, the summer home of the Boston Symphony. I was Artistic Director there for 13 years. And at one point, my boss as it were, Seiji Ozawa, became … I don't know. I think he lost his mind. And I told him so. Anyway, he got rid of not only me, but some of the most gifted and devoted people to Tanglewood that ever graced those lawns and a lot of people were very upset, including George Pearl. And he wrote these pieces for me, three pieces, but they're each dedicated to another person that was sacked at the same time that I was disposed of."

Fleisher opens this solo recording with a Chaconne by Bach, arranged for left hand by Johannes Brahms. I asked Fleisher if he knew why Brahms created this arrangement. "Yeah, he did it for the love of his life — Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann's wife — who was a most extraordinary personage. She was a wonderful pianist. She bore Robert I think it was 8 or 9 children, one or two of them stillborn. She had a great career as a pianist. She composed. She kind of did everything her husband Robert did, only backwards and in high heels, kind of like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. And she was great friends with Brahms. And she had hurt her finger on her right hand at some point. And Brahms made an arrangement of the famous Bach d minor Chaconne for violin. And he was smart enough and talented enough to realize like most other arrangers don't … not to change a single note of Bach. Every note that's in this piece is the original note of Bach. The only thing Brahms does is bring everything down an octave so that the pianist is not spending his time in the altitudinous reaches of the keyboard."

The prelude No. 6 for left hand by 20th-century Spanish composer Federico Mompou is one that Fleisher was introduced to just a few years ago. "It has this extraordinary musing quality and just kind of sitting at the piano, in the day when it was fashionable to have a cigarette in your right hand and you're sitting there and you're playing broken harmonies and just trying out things," he says.

Leon Fleisher has tried out a lot of things in his 86 years. All the Things you Are is a reflection of only a handful. It's a recording of wistful reminiscences from a musician, a good dad and grandfather, and a pretty decent husband.

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