My Nine Lives: A Memoir of Many Careers in Music
A concert pianist lost the use of his right hand at thirty-six and built four decades of career around it.
Leon Fleisher, writing with the critic Anne Midgette, describes the focal dystonia that ended his life as a two-handed soloist at the height of it, and the teaching, conducting and left-hand repertoire he turned to instead. He later recovered partial use. Candid about what the loss cost him, and unusually good on how classical musicians actually think.
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Tyler Cowen
Leon Fleisher and Anne Midgette, My Nine Lives: A Memoir of Many Careers in Music. Classical music is a wonderful area to read books in, much like World War II. Most of the books are written by very smart people, such as Fleisher, a top pianist in his time (try Fleisher-Szell for the Beethoven piano concerti). And they are written for very smart people.
Source · January 2026
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