Leon Fleisher Plays Brahms (1997)

Fleisher Plays Brahms

The American pianist Leon Fleisher (b. 1928) had extraordinary attainments when his performing career was interrupted by an ailment to his right hand at the age of 37. Fleisher continued performing with his left hand and became a distinguished teacher and conductor of chamber ensembles. In 2004, he began playing the piano again with both hands.

Fleisher is best-known for the remarkable recordings of the Beethoven and Brahms concertos made during his prime, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. This double CD is a reissue of Fleisher's recordings of the two Brahms piano concertos. It includes as well Fleisher's performances of two Brahms works for solo piano: the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24, and the Waltzes, Op. 39. This is a glorious CD for lovers of Brahms.

The highlight of the collection is Brahms's piano concerto no. 1 in D minor, opus 15. Although I offer a minority opinion, I have always responded more deeply to this passionate, stormy work of Brahms's young manhood than to the more famous second concerto that he wrote over 20 years later. In Brahms's earlier music personal feeling predominates over the structure, learning and formalism of the works of the composer's later years.

The first concerto is a large, bravura work in the romantic tradition, deeply indebted to Robert Schumann and Beethoven. I have always loved the long rhapsodic passages for the solo piano in the opening movement. Brahms initially conceived the work as a symphony but transformed the work into a concerto at the recommendations of friends. During its first performances, the work was booed and hissed. It received recognition only late in Brahms's career. The first movement is long and stormy, with the improvisatory piano solos I mentioned, fierce trills, and long runs for the soloist. The second movement is a tribute to Robert Schumann as well as a paean of love to Clara. The flamboyant and stormy finale takes the finale of Beethoven's piano concerto no. 3 as a model.

The Szell-Fleisher performance of this work dates from 1956. Both soloist and orchestra offer a gutsy, large scaled, powerhouse reading of this masterpiece of Brahms's youth. In his still-valuable reference work "101 masterpieces of music and their composers," Martin Bookspan described this recording as "a performance of towering strength, impassioned poetry and flowing lyricism." He aptly observed that "Fleisher's playing here is a throwback to the grand manner of another era -- doubly welcome because it is a rare commodity these days."

Fleisher and Szell recorded Brahms's second piano concerto in B flat major in 1962. Their reading of the second is on the whole more subdued and lyrical than their performance of the first. If not as earth-shaking as the earlier recording, it remains an excellent version of the Brahms second concerto.

The second is a monumental, granitic work in four large movements. Where the first concerto features display passages for the pianist, the second has been described as a "symphony with piano obligato" as the writing for the soloist is fully integrated with the writing for the orchestra. The work opens with a horn call, reminiscent of the opening of Schubert's ninth symphony, followed by a movement both lyrical and majestic. I particularly liked Fleisher's playing of the brief solo passages just after the first passage in the work for full orchestra. The unusual second movement is large,tragic and tumultuous in character. Brahms ironically described it as "a tiny, tiny wisp of a scherzo." The lyrical third movement features a duet between the piano soloist and a solo cello. The wonderful finale is a flowing and joyous rondo which relieves the tension of the earlier three massive movements. The critic, Donald Francis Tovey, said there were "no adequate words" for the finale. Tovey proceed to describe the mood of the finale as "We have done our work -- let the children play in the world which our work has made safer and happier for them." (Would that it were so.)

The two solo piano works are beautifully played and are of quite different types. The difficult "Handel variations" opus 24 is a work modeled on Beethoven's large sets of variations. It shows Brahms's as a learned composer, offering 25 short variations on a flowing theme by Handel and concluding with a large fugue. The opus 37 waltzes are a reduction of an earlier work of Brahms for two pianists. The work was intended for amateurs and features Hungarian and gypsy themes alternating with delightfully lyrical, Schubertian waltzes. These waltzes were among Brahms's most popular and financially successful compositions during his life.

Robin Friedman