Leon Fleisher, The Pianist Who Reinvented Himself, Dies At 92 - NPR

Pianist Leon Fleisher eventually resumed playing with both hands after an injury sidelined him at age 36.

Pianist Leon Fleisher eventually resumed playing with both hands after an injury sidelined him at age 36.

Leon Fleisher was 92 years old.

In his memoir, Fleisher said he couldn't remember a time when he wasn't playing the piano.

Anne Midgette, who followed Page as the Washington Post's chief classical music critic and who co-authored Fleisher's memoir My Nine Lives, says that the pianist stood out with a certain clarity and "rightness" to the approach and the playing.

"Having spent 36, 37 years of playing two hands and then to have it denied was a tremendous blow." Fleisher considered suicide.

They were paying to see the great Leon Fleisher playing with the left hand." Maurice Ravel's Concerto for the Left hand became Fleisher's new calling card.

Leon Kirchner, among other contemporary composers, wrote left-handed music for Fleisher.

In 1996, Page wrote "I would rather listen to Fleisher, even in his current, delicate shape, than to most other pianists now before the public." In 2004, Fleisher released an album simply titled, Two Hands, his first such album in 41 years

"He leaves a legacy about overcoming adversity and about pushing through and finding different ways to express yourself," Midgette says