Botox to the rescue for ailing pianist
Published: April 12, 2007
Next to slicing off a finger in the kitchen, it was the scariest experience a concert pianist could have.
“It was a slow contraction of my fifth and fourth fingers in my right hand, into the palm,” Leon Fleisher recalls. “I noticed it in the summer of 1964, and by the time 10 months or so passed, I couldn’t straighten them out and use them.”
One of the most brilliant of a whole pleiad of American pianists who came to light after World War II – others included Van Cliburn, William Kapell, Byron Janis, Gary Graffman and John Browning – Mr. Fleisher was only 37 when he was incapacitated. Only after 30 more years, and trying everything from acupuncture to the massage technique known as Rolfing, was the problem diagnosed as a neurological disorder called focal dystonia. And finally, the successful treatment turned out to be Botox, injected into crucial muscles.
Now, at 78, Mr. Fleisher is a senior sage of the piano – and in some respects playing more beautifully than ever. On Friday evening, at Caruth Auditorium, he’ll play a recital on the Chamber Music International series. In the first half he’ll perform Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze and Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, Stravinsky’s Serenade in A, Leon Kirchner’s For the Left Hand and Dina Koston’s Messages I. In the second half, he’ll join cellist Bion Tsang in a cello arrangement of Brahms’ Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor.
A protégé of the legendary Austrian pianist Artur Schnabel, Mr. Fleisher belonged to a midcentury reaction against the expressive extremes of late-romantic pianists. Analytical brilliance was favored over emotional warmth.
“At his peak, Fleisher was the model of clean-cut, intelligent American pianism,” writes David Dubal in The Art of the Piano. “Fleisher’s playing is so direct that, on first hearing, it may seem somewhat cold.”
That, at any rate, was a common reading of his early performances. But after those intervening decades of playing only the small body of music for left hand alone, plus some conducting and a lot of teaching, Mr. Fleisher seems a changed musician. In 2004, Vanguard released his first new two-hands recording in 40 years, and it captured a kind of old-master depth and freedom.
“I think I’ve learned an awful lot from conducting,” he says. “Perhaps my playing has become more orchestral in the sense that it’s more variegated, more colorful. I think by this time in life I’m no longer concerned about doing something in bad taste, or next to being a caricature. Perhaps I might have a greater freedom.”
When his fingers first seized up, no one knew what was going on. Some doctors dismissed it as psychological; others turned him into a walking medical experiment.
“You name it, I tried it,” Mr. Fleisher says of therapies ranging from aromatherapy to Zen Buddhism.
“The doctors were willing to try this injection, that injection, having no idea of what was going on.”
Surgery to relieve carpal tunnel pressure, in 1982, helped. But not until a doctor suggested Botox injections, 10 years ago, did he recover enough control of those two fingers to resume two-hands playing.
“There are about 300,000 people in the states now with focal dystonia,” Mr. Fleisher says, “and some 10,000 musicians around the world. It’s a neurological movement disorder, rated third after Parkinson’s and essential tremor.
“It’s in the brain. Botox just alleviates the symptoms; it’s not a cure by any means. With me, if they inject it under the forearm where the nerve informs the muscles to contract, it weakens the muscle just a little bit and allows the opposing muscle to take over as it would normally.”
Does he believe the cliché that personal adversity deepens artistry?
“I can’t help but think so. Not just musicianship, but life in general. We learn from life experiences, and they can broaden our horizons, or we can cave in under their weight and give up. If we don’t, I think we open ourselves to any number of positive effects, positive experiences, and become all the richer for it.”
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