CIT School of Music

Mozart – Symphony No 1. Concerto in F for two pianos K242. Adagio and Fugue. Symphony No 41 (Jupiter)

Leon Fleisher has the unusual distinction of being the world’s most celebrated dystonic pianist. In 1964, he became the victim of focal dystonia, which caused the fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand to curl inwards, out of his control.

His high-flying performing career was interrupted, and he took up conducting, devoted himself with renewed energy to teaching, and became a leading exponent of repertoire for the left hand, which includes works by Ravel, Prokofiev, Britten and Strauss from the 20th century, and pieces by Saint-Saëns, Scriabin and Brahms (an arrangement of Bach’s D minor Chaconne) from the 19th century.

Although dystonia is a neurological problem that’s currently incurable, its symptoms are treatable, and, courtesy of botox (among other interventions), Fleisher was eventually able to resume his two-handed career. His first two-handed recording in more than 40 years was released in 2004, the year he turned 76.

On Wednesday, with his 82nd birthday just months away, he made what appears to have been his Irish debut in the all-Mozart programme that opened his short tour with the Irish Chamber Orchestra in Cork.

The programme was an unusual one. Mozart’s first and last symphonies (written at the ages of eight and 32) framed the composer’s two-piano version of his Lodron Concerto (originally for three pianos), and the Adagio and Fugue in C minor for strings (which grew out of a work originally written for two pianos).

Fleisher was a benign presence on stage, a conductor whose manner was more collegial than controlling, and whose approach in the concerto – where his piano-playing partner was his wife, Katherine Jacobson-Fleisher – was that of a chamber-musician working with peers.

The husband-and-wife team made for a well-balanced duo, close enough in manner and intention to knit almost seamlessly together in the busiest of overlapping interplay, sufficiently different in tone (his brighter and finely sculpted, hers a little heavier and more restrained in expressiveness) for each to be heard as a distinct personality.

The fact that the child Mozart’s first symphony sounded a little thicker than the 20-year-old’s concerto had to do with the progress of the composer as well as the style of delivery sought out by Fleisher – his approach to the concerto seemed leaner and sprightlier than it had been in the symphony. The opening of the Adagio and Fugue was powerfully done, but the fugue itself was almost too egalitarian in its contrapuntal display, sounding like chamber music-making for insiders (the players) rather than outsiders (the audience).

The Jupiter Symphony was given with sinewy muscularity, its endlessly astonishing fugal finale bringing cheers of appreciation from the enthusiastic audience. The tour concludes tonight at the RDS in Dublin.