Two Hands: The Leon Fleisher Story

Overview

In 1964, Leon Fleisher's career as a concert pianist was thriving. A seemingly minor accident - a cut on his right thumb - led to dystonia, the involuntary curling of his right hand's ring and little fingers. In recent interviews, Fleisher talks about what followed: the end of a marriage, despair and disappointments, surgery in 1983 that led to a brief return to the concert hall, and, finally, with Botox and Rolfing, the ability to play with two hands. In between, Fleisher discovers his ecstasies: conducting, teaching, and playing compositions for one hand commissioned in the early twentieth century for a World War I veteran.