This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.
When Leon Fleischer was a small child, his older brother took piano lessons.
The brother didn't much care for them.
But afterwards, little Leon would climb onto the piano bench and play,
note for note, the pieces his brother had practiced.
That's when his mother realized Leon was the one who should study the instrument.
Leon Fleischer made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1944.
He was just 16 years old.
who is to perform Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor.
A New York Times music critic said this performance established him as one of the most remarkably gifted of the younger generation of American keyboard artists.
He went on to perform with the world's top orchestras throughout the 1950s and early 60s.
Pause this story here, and Leon Fleischer's life is a triumph.
But then, something unexpected happened.
He started to notice an odd stiffness in his right index finger.
His fourth and fifth finger started curling under.
The pain and stiffness grew steadily worse.
Within a matter of months, his career as a concert pianist was virtually over.
As you can well imagine, without becoming melodramatic, it was...
I was in a very despairing state of depression for about two years.
If we were to take stock of Leon Fleischer's life at this point, we might say it was a tragedy.