Sony Classical to Release 'Leon Fleisher: The Complete Album Collection' on 7/16

On July 16, Sony Classical will release Leon Fleisher: The Complete Album Collection-a 23-CD deluxe box set spanning the legendary pianist's fifty-five years recording for the Columbia/Epic and Sony Classical labels from 1954-2009, yielding some of classical music's definitive recordings. The release comes exactly one week before Fleisher's 85th birthday on July 23, 2013, and is supported by a full schedule of appearances as pianist, conductor, and mentor, in the coming year.

This expansive collection illuminates an epic career, beginning with Fleisher's earliest recordings from the treasured decade between 1954 and 1963. The signing of Leon Fleisher to Columbia Masterworks/Epic made musical history in 1954, when George Szell, conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, approached him to record every major work ever written for piano and orchestra. Included here are Fleisher's iconic Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Schumann and Grieg concerto collaborations with Szell and the Clevelanders, as well as his highly acclaimed solo and chamber music recordings.

At the height of his career in 1965, Leon Fleisher was suddenly limited to playing with only his left hand when focal dystonia disabled his right. But he refused to let this affliction stop him from championing the one-handed repertoire. This collection includes two discs capturing Fleisher at the peak of his reemergence playing solo works, plus a third disc of Piano Concertos for the Left Hand with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Seiji Ozawa.

Following revolutionary 21st century treatments, Fleisher has remarkably resumed his performance of two-hand repertoire. TheNew York Times profiled the renaissance of his career in a profile headlined A Pianist for Whom Never Was Never an Option, calling Fleisher "a symbol of the indomitable human spirit." The last disc here of three Mozart piano concertos was released in 2009, his first two-hand concerto recording in over 40 years.

"Fleisher plays fewer notes than most pianists but they mean more." - The Boston Globe

Beyond Fleisher's formidable reputation in interpreting the works of the Viennese school, he has earned a "reputation for piercing to the heart of things with the lyrical insights of a poet" (The Wall Street Journal). At age 9, Fleisher had become the youngest-ever student of pianist Artur Schnabel, continuing a pedagogical lineage that traces back to Beethoven, which engendered a lifelong connection to music, beyond simply the piano. In a recent interview Fleisher explained, "The German tradition is metaphysical. It connects with the greater cosmos. It asks in what way am I like a brook or a tree. Beethoven, for example, always strives for things beyond the merely personal. And the breadth is unbelievable-from Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven to Brahms."

Fleisher's Brahms piano concerto recordings are still considered definitive today; in 2007, Yo-Yo Ma named Fleisher's 1958 Brahms' Concerto No. 1 his favorite classical recording, citing the pianist's "virile and full-blooded performance." The recordings of the five Beethoven piano concertos were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008.

Leon Fleisher continues to pursue endeavors that have kept him in the public eye for nearly seven decades, and this summer's highlights include performances with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood (Lenox, MA) on July 12, and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia Festival (Highland Park, IL) on July 28. He will spend the first two weeks of July in residence at Marlboro Music in Vermont, exploring works by Hindemith and Stravinsky, mentoring and conducting the program's young professional musicians.

For the 2013-14 concert season, Fleisher will be the Cleveland Orchestra's new Artist-in-Residence (a career recap; he was conductor George Szell's first soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1947), returning this December for the first time since 2003 to make his Severance Hall conducting debut, in a program including Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3 with Mitsuko Uchida as soloist. He'll appear at Carnegie Hall also in December, in concert with the New York String Orchestra under the baton of Jaime Laredo.

Fleisher has earned a reputation among students as the 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' of the piano, and he'll return to lead master classes at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Yale University, and Steans Institute at Ravinia, as well as a weeklong residency at the Curtis Institute of Music. He holds a position at the Royal Conservatory of Music, and since 1959 has held a position at thePeabody Institute, which established the Leon Fleisher Scholars Fund for Piano Students in 2012.

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