The sound of `Two Hands' playing: truly welcome.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: David Patrick Stearns

Few classical piano recordings have been as arduously won as Leon Fleisher's "Two Hands."

Behind the high-tone program of Bach, Chopin and Schubert, released on the Vanguard label Aug. 24, lie decades of disappointment, starting when one of America's best-ever pianists discovered that his right arm was inexplicably useless.

That was in 1964. Luckily, there's a sizable left-hand-only repertoire, and when treatments for repetitive stress syndrome arrived in the 1980s, Fleisher made an eagerly awaited two-hand comeback in 1982. Yet he had other physiological problems that made the right arm undependable for career purposes, problems that have ultimately been treated with the unlikely combination of botox and rolfing. Quietly, he re-emerged in two-hand repertoire over the last seven years. Hence, the recording.

To hear him talk about it, it's not so momentous.

"I was comfortable with the idea," the 76-year-old ...