Anyone inspecting the ranks of young American pianists back in the early 1960s will have encountered a wide array of athletic finger-sprinters. And yet Leon Fleisher always stood out as different, a consummate artist, more thoughtful than most and with a powerful intelligence that brought notable levels of insight to the piano concertos of Brahms and Beethoven, all of which he recorded with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. In 1964-5 the onset of repetitive strain injury threatened to destroy Fleisher’s career; but, with typically brave resolve, he bounced back as a pre-eminent exponent of left-hand piano repertory, learning most of the acknowledged left-hand masterpieces and commissioning a whole host of new works. Latterly, he has made huge strides towards full rehabilitation and is now re-visiting the major two-handed repertory – even the formidable Brahms D minor Concerto.
Philips’s well-planned anthology is something of a ‘mopping up’ operation for various Sony recordings that have not otherwise appeared on CD. Most are in mono and pre-date Fleisher’s finest ‘early’ phase as a major recording artist, but two of the sessions coincide, more or less, with some of his best stereo LPs: Ned Rorem’s Three Barcarolles (with their unmistakable echoes of Samuel Barber) and Copland’s masterly Sonata. In the Copland, Fleisher’s forceful attack, immaculate timing, precise chording and impressive mastery of dynamics make majestic music of the Sonata’s outer movements. The scherzo is deft, delicate and capricious and the sum effect is to highlight the powerful harmonic principles of Copland’s style. It is surely one of the great recordings of American piano music.
The rest of the programme is something of a mixed bag. Weber’s decorative – and technically demanding – Fourth Sonata is given with great aplomb, elegant in the first movement, brilliant in the second and fourth. Mozart’s Sonata, K330 is stylishly shaped but the Liszt Sonata is, untypically, more forceful than thoughtful. Fleisher leaps at the Allegro energico passages with abundant impulse and no lack of facility, but detail tends to smudge and, after a while, the initial impact wears thin. Ravel’s Sonatine is nicely sculpted, the Alborada del gracioso strong on glitter but lacking in light and shade. Go to the Left-Hand Concerto and Fleisher achieves more in the way of tonal colour than he had with both hands 24 years earlier.
The Paganini Rhapsody is distinguished by a quick-witted rapport with Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. Like the Liszt, it is extraordinarily exciting (incisive, lean, rhythmically propulsive); but, again, the closer one listens, the more one misses. This and the Liszt are perhaps closest in style to the more superficial efforts of Fleisher’s lesser peers. All the transfers are excellent.'