Leon Fleisher, The Pianist Who Reinvented Himself, Dies At 92
One of America's most beloved and resourceful pianists has died. Leon Fleisher was 92 years old. He died of cancer in Baltimore Sunday morning, according to his son, Julian. The pianist's roller coaster career began with fame, moved to despair and ended in fulfillment. In his memoir, Fleisher said he couldn't remember a time when he wasn't playing the piano. He gave his first public recital at age eight and was just 16 when he debuted at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic . Conductor Pierre Monteux called Fleisher the "pianistic find of the century." At 25, he recorded his first album for Columbia Records, a deep dive into music by Franz Schubert that Tim Page, writing for the Washington Post in 1996, called "transcendent." Page described Fleisher as a pianist who had it all: "a technique that knew no difficulties, a bejeweled and expressive tone, a sure intellectual command of musical form, and an acute sensitivity to whatever