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Leon Fleisher: Well, it was an extraordinary experience for me, because, as you say, I've recounted that story countless times. And somehow you elicited from me something fresh. Nathaniel has an extraordinary gift this way; I really can't describe it. There were a couple of times when I was rather tired, and maybe he didn't get what he was looking for. So he goaded me. And like a real creator, he managed to get what he was looking for. It was a great joy.
Kahn: Thank you.
Kelley: As a pianist, do you find that when you're interpreting works of the past—you know, in the documentary, we heard Bach and others—that you're capturing a spirit of the past, or do you see it as music that is continuously alive?
Fleisher: Oh, absolutely, it is alive. I think that's what a masterpiece is. It's not dated; it is alive for now and forever. And it is capable of being plumbed in endless ways. You're always looking for what's behind the notes. The fact is, I've reached the age that I have, and I'm still finding new implications in the music. I think that's what keeps great art alive.
Kelley: There's something remarkable about the struggle between yourself with these physical limitations and your devotion to the music. How tough was it to boil this down to a short documentary?
Fleisher: Right, all of this took up just seventeen minutes on the screen. And it took me seventy-five bloody years! I think that's the genius of Nathaniel—that I still choose to talk to him.
Kahn: Leon, this story deserves to be a long film and not just a short. I'd like to make it as a feature film. I think it's so enormously inspiring, and I asked Leon who should play him. So he said to me, either Daniel Day-Lewis or Danny DeVito. And I said, well, that's quite a range. How do you rationalize that range? And he said, "Well, I feel differently on different days."
But the short documentary has its own discipline. You know, we have novels and we have short stories. When you pick up a novel, you sort of know what to expect. It's going to be a long experience; you're going to live with it for a while. If it's War and Peace, and if you read at my speed, you're going to live with it for several months, maybe even a year. Of course, if you read at President Brodhead's speed, it's probably a day. With films, there is a kind of tyrannical length. It used to be two-and-a-half hours, then it was two hours, now it's ninety minutes, sometimes even eighty minutes. When I was young, short films were part of our world; they were part of the output of the greatest filmmakers of all time, like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and there would be newsreels before film screenings as well. It was a very exciting thing to watch a short, and many times the shorts were better than the features. I remember one particular short about a boy and his chicken. I have no idea what the feature was, but I remember the short. I think that's a form that we've lost, unfortunately, but it is coming back.
Kelley: To what extent was there negotiation between the two of you about which compositions would be represented, which ones might best serve the structure?
Kahn: We worked very hard on choosing a piece that went with the moment. And we listened to every recording we could get our hands on. So it was not just saying, "Oh, we should throw some music in there." We recorded "Sheep May Safely Graze" a number of times. And someone said to me that the film on some level prepares you to listen to "Sheep May Safely Graze," which plays mostly over you, Leon, going out on the stage as the film closes. It's a moment when the audience can just sit and listen to the music, without the visual stimulation. So musically, it's my favorite moment in the film—playing over the credits.
And I remember asking you, how do you determine how long a pause is? So tell me. How do you determine how long a pause is? Because that moment in the film, where there's a pause just before another chord comes in, is extraordinarily beautiful.
Fleisher: I don't know.
Kahn: Well, that's the mystery.
Kelley: What's your process as you coach a student who's about to play that next chord? I've heard you say that sometimes it's nice to kind of wait and give space.
Fleisher: It's hard, really, to put into words. I think, basically, later is better, because it helps free the imagination of the listener. With inexperience, with young kids,they're always coming in too early. And if you come in just a wee bit late instead, it sets it off; it gives the composition that sense of structure.
I gave a class the other day in Las Vegas, of all places, the World Piano Pedagogy Conference. I started my remarks by saying, "I've just thought of a title for this lecture, and that is 'How Do We Know When to Play the Second Note?' " The first note is no problem, but how do you know when to play the second note? If you can set off silent clicks in your head, you're much more likely to find that sweet spot, the timing that is just right.
Kelley: How do you feel about the resurrection of the story of your dystonia [leading to the loss of the use of your right hand]?
Fleisher: The more I get up and scream about it, the better it is. There are some 300,000 people in this country who suffer from dystonia. One form is genetic, and it's painful. The other kind is what I have. It's called focal dystonia; it hits one set of muscles, usually the one that counts the most. There are some 10,000 musicians in the world who suffer from focal dystonia. They even get it in the lip—horn players. I really was the first to scream out loud about it, because so many musicians have it, and they don't want it to get to be known: Any diminution in their chops, as it were, means they're out of work. So they disguise it as the flu or something.
Kelley: I have two last questions. One is in the form of a plea: You both agree, I know, that we could use some better pianos at Duke. Okay, good, now that's on the record. The other question is, sometimes you're talking to someone you love a lot, and the very next day, you say to yourself, "I wish I had said this instead." Are there any such second thoughts around this film?
Fleisher: I can't think of any. I don't know how many hours you filmed, but I loved your choice of material.
Kahn: I felt at the time that we got everything that we needed. But I know that there is so much more. Coming today to your master class, there were so many things that I saw. You've mentioned that when you're teaching, you have to find the right words. And the day that we filmed you, you found some of the right words, but I think maybe the particular students were not at the right point in their performances.
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