My Nine Lives: A Memoir of Many Careers in Music [Hardcover]

Leon Fleisher (Author), Anne Midgette (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 30, 2010

The stirring memoir of one of the greatest pianists of the postwar era—an inspiring tale of triumph over crippling incapacity that rivals Shine.

The pianist Leon  Fleisher—whose student–teacher lineage linked him to Beethoven by way of his instructor, Artur Schnabel—displayed an exceptional gift from his earliest years. And then, like the hero of a Greek tragedy, he was struck down in his prime: at thirty-six years old, he suddenly and mysteri­ously became unable to use two fingers of his right hand.

It is not just Fleisher’s thirty-year search for a cure that drives this remarkable memoir. With his coauthor, celebrated music critic Anne Midgette, the pianist explores the depression that engulfed him as his condition worsened and, perhaps most powerfully of all, the sheer love of music that rescued him from complete self-destruction.

Miraculously, at the age of sixty-six, Fleisher was diagnosed with focal dystonia, and cured by experimental Botox injections. In 2003, he returned to Carnegie Hall to give his first two-handed recital in over three decades, bringing down the house.

Sad, reflective, but ultimately triumphant, My Nine Lives com­bines the glamour, pathos, and courage of Fleisher’s life with real musical and intellectual substance. Fleisher embodies the resilience of the human spirit, and his memoir proves that true passion always finds a way.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pianist Fleisher played the Brahms D Minor concerto at his debut with the New York Philharmonic when he was 16 years old. A brilliant career seemed assured. But at the age of 36, Fleisher lost the use of two fingers on his right hand (due to a neurological condition called focal dystonia), which ended his performing career. This heartfelt memoir chronicles Fleisher's remarkable musical life, beginning as a child prodigy playing Beethoven in San Francisco to his acceptance of Kennedy Center Honors in 2007. Writing chronologically, Fleisher recalls his early training with the master teacher Artur Schnabel, his early performance success followed by career disappointments. He recounts his foray into conducting, his love of teaching, and his years of contentment as the director of Tanglewood. In each of the five interludes interspersed within the narrative, Fleisher provides a learned and lively synopsis of a single composer and a seminal composition. Aptly titled as a master class, these worthy asides will delight serious students of classical music or anyone interested in musical theory. Fleisher intimately chronicles his years of despair during his search for a cure to his mysterious malady, and the ultimate understanding of how his disease opened up new careers within his beloved world of classical music. (Dec.)
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From Booklist

For many, Leon Fleisher may be more famous for the injury to his right hand that curtailed his piano concertizing for 30 years than for the sublime playing that made him one of the world’s foremost pianists. He details the near-madness the injury caused him and, subsequently, after endless therapies, the successful cure through Botox and rolfing. More important, though, he shares a life led near the epicenter of the musical world for more than six decades, starting with his Carnegie Hall debut in 1944 at age 16 and including lessons with piano eminence Artur Schnabel, a fruitful musical relationship with conductor George Szell, associations with the great pianists of the day, conducting, teaching, and his performance approaches to signal works in the canon, which are thoughtfully handled in “Master Class” subsections. A winning volume for musicians and music fans both. --Alan Moores

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday (November 30, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038552918X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385529181
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.2 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #244,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars an absorbing memoir December 18, 2010

By jsa TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Pianist Leon Fleisher's story is a lesson in adaptation. After a mysterious condition robbed him of the use of several fingers in his right hand, Fleisher's promising career temporarily ground to a halt. His memoir naturally focuses a great deal of attention on his life-changing condition, from the suicidal feelings he experienced early on, to the struggle to get an accurate diagnosis and cure, all the while never giving up hope that he would regain the use of his hand. We feel some of the anguish and frustration Fleisher experienced as he trudged from one doctor to the next and seemed to have tried every conceivable treatment in his search for relief - and added to this was the question of whether or not he had brought this malady on himself. Did he depart from his teacher Schnabel's advice and take on too rigorous of a practice regimin a la Rudolf Serkin, or, perhaps worse yet, was he a victim of his own psychological processes, subconsciously programming himself to fail? All of this is played out in this absorbing memoir by the 82 year old pianist.

Fleisher's story is interesting from several perspectives. First, he recounts his youth in San Francisco, the child of parents who were willing to make huge sacrifices to get their son the musical training they believed his nascent talent merited. His mother in particular seems to have been the catalyst for much of this, while his father, who we hear little about other than the business he was in, closed his millinery stores in San Francisco and relocated the family to New York and went to work in a factory so that Leon could be close to his teacher, Artur Schnabel. On the one hand, Fleisher was aware that he was responsible for the upheaval in his family and says "it was a heavy burden for a ten-year old." On the other hand, Fleisher had an older brother, Ray, who he says adapted well to New York; but after Ray enlisted in the army, Leon says that his absence didn't make much difference since "I had always taken the brunt of the family's attention." Given the choice of words and the relatively little that's said about his parents after this (his father completely disappears from the narrative after the move to N.Y. - not even his death is mentioned), I gather that growing up as a wunderkind in the Fleisher family may not necessarily have been a bed of roses. (Fleisher, by the way, doesn't absolve himself when it comes to his own rocky domestic life, which consisted of three wives - he cheated on the first two - and, by his own admission, being a pretty lousy father to five children, although he seems to have made up for it.)

I found Fleisher's recollections of his years with Schnabel, first in Italy and then in New York, fascinating stuff. Interesting too was his relationship with Pierre Monteux, with whom he spent several summers at the Monteux school in Hancock, Maine. Not surprisingly, Fleisher devotes a great deal of space to his relationship with the mercurial George Szell, the conductor with whom he became most closely associated and with whom he made classic recordings of the Beethoven, Brahms, Grieg and Schumann concertos. Interestingly, he feels he was "fired" as a pupil by Schnabel, who he revered, after the master learned that he had played for Horowitz; and it was his mentor, Szell, in many ways a father figure, who told him that he wasn't in shape to go on a highly visible State Department tour of the Soviet Union, a crushing blow even though Fleisher himself was having serious doubts given the problems he was having with his hand. These experiences, among others, no doubt worked their way into what appears to be Fleisher's compassionate approach to teaching and mentoring.

Fleisher is a good story-teller, something he shares with his colleague Gary Graffman, who wrote an entertaining memoir back in the early 1980's, "I Really Should Be Practicing." (As it turns out, Graffman too developed problems with his right hand and took up works for the left hand only.) There are numerous anecdotes about Szell, Leonard Bernstein, Rudolf Serkin, Heifetz and others that make for enjoyable reading. Of Otto Klemperer, for example, Fleisher writes, "This was a man who, when he was dissatisfied with the service in a hotel he was staying in, went out and pissed on the hallway rug to show his displeasure. How could you not want to play with a figure like that?" This is a second-hand sample; there are plenty of first-hand stories that are better.

Among the things I like about this book are Fleisher's "Master Class" sections, where he dissects a particular work that's close to him. I especially appreciated his comments on the Ravel concerto, a piece he learned after losing the use of his right hand and subsequently "owned" for decades.

One curious omission - there's no index.

Altogether an interesting read, highly recommended for music lovers.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty and honest December 26, 2010

By martbar

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Fleisher's inspirational story is beautifully told here. Full disclosure--I studied with Fleisher in monthly masterclasses for five years, so I was predisposed, perhaps, to finding this book interesting. But I believe the combination of his self-deprecating wit and Ann Midgette's presentation skills has resulted in a work of literary art that will be interesting to musician and non-musician alike. The Fleisher family's sacrifices for the young artist, the excitement of his early career, the frustration of a crippling hand condition that baffled the medical community, the ways Fleisher found to keep expressing the music inside him--all are compelling. His honesty in the story of three marriages and his sometimes lacking parenting skills is laudable. His anecdotes about interactions with famous people both musical and otherwise are plentiful and entertaining. While there is no false modesty here, his extraordinary intelligence and talent are obvious, and Midgette allows for the same intimate but pithy conversational style I remember from Fleisher in person. Of special interest to musicians are the brief "masterclasses" Fleisher writes on some of his favorite keyboard compositions. These are colorfully presented and not at all pedantic so nonmusicians might find their insight enjoyable--or can easily skip them as they wish. This book is a skillfully crafted true story of triumph over adversity and deserves a wide audience.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Not the typical self indulgent memoir January 6, 2011

By B. Flinchbaugh

Format:Hardcover

First two disclosures: I know and have worked with Leon Fleisher while a student at Peabody. He conducted the Peabody Symphony in a very fine performance of Rach Symphony No. 1 that I played, and also I played on the Ravel Left Hand Concerto and Lucas Foss Concerto with Mr. Fleisher as soloist.

As a conductor, LF is the first person to downplay his baton technique, but whatever lack of finessed movement is made up 100 fold with his ability to communicate with musicians, especially about rhythm. Also, unlike the director of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, Teri Murai, Mr. Fleisher respects each musician in the ensemble and cultivates a team from the first minute of the first rehearsal. While playing the Foss Concerto, the orchestra was having difficulty counting the complex rhythms and Mr. Murai put his infamous "clam can" on the podium, where he explained, "section players pay 25 cents per mistake and principals 50 cents." Mr. Fleisher immediately interjected, "um, excuse me Maestro, how much is it for the soloist or conductor when they make mistakes?"

The other memory I have of LF is that before performing Rach 1, the principal hornist and I were sitting backstage talking, and LF came out of his dressing room, baton in hand. He came over and sat with us, waiting for the concert to begin, and told story after story about Szell, New York Philharmonic premiere, etc. About 8:05 the stage manager ran down the steps and said, "Maestro, we've been looking for you. We need to start the concert!!" and he gradually got up, and conducted the concert.

Mr. Leon Fleisher is a truly humble world class talent, which is a rare combination. Throughout this book, his sense of self effacing humor shines throughout each and every story. Do not let the stream of consciousness style wear you down. The book is a quick read and filled with many wonderful and honest stories about the life of one of the greatest living musicians on the planet. Well done, Mr. Fleisher!