The world of music, as much as it is filled with beauty, is also full of tragedy. Beethoven going deaf. Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Gershwin, all gone before their time.

Pianist Leon Fleisher's career could have met a similar fate. Heralded as one of the greatest pianists of the mid-20th century and the heir apparent of a piano legacy that stretched back to Beethoven, Fleisher contracted a mysterious ailment at age 37 that rendered his right hand useless at the keyboard. His performance career, though not finished, appeared to be drastically limited to left-handed works, which are not nearly as well known as the two-handed repertoire.

But for Fleisher, art has triumphed over adversity. Fleisher first found salvation in teaching and conducting, becoming a major contributor to the music scene. And, after decades of experimentation and frustration, he's made a remarkable comeback, regaining the use of his right hand in the mid-1990s. His performances have been warmly received by both longtime aficionados who appreciate his struggles as well as new fans who are struck by the depth of his interpretations.

“;If I had to live my life over again, I'm not sure I would do anything differently,”; said Fleisher, who will be performing Saturday at Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, speaking in a phone interview from his home in Baltimore.

FLEISHER seemed destined for greatness at an early age, when he came under the tutelage of Artur Schnabel. Schnabel had studied with Theodor Leschetizky, a student of Carl Czerny, who in turn was a student of Beethoven. Such lineage in itself would be enough to propel a young musician's career, but what made Fleisher's experience so unusual was that he was only 9 when he started and was able to work with Schnabel for 10 years.

“;He never took anybody under 16, because of the abstraction of his language; it was something he found that kids didn't understand,”; Fleisher said.

Some well-connected family friends conspired to have the boy play at a dinner party Schnabel was attending. Schnabel was so taken with the young artist that he accepted him as a student. “;It's really kind of a fairytale,”; Fleisher said. “;Everything that I am, I think, is the result of my work with Schnabel.”;

Fleisher played Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic at age 16. In 1952, he was the first American to win the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Belgium, one of the most prestigious competitions in the world. He was hailed as “;the pianistic find of the century,”; performing in all the great concert halls and with all the great symphonies. Some of his recordings from that era are regarded as the most profound interpretations of any generation.

BUT IN the mid-1960s, with the world at his fingertips, Fleisher began to have trouble with his right hand. The ring finger and pinkie would uncontrollably curl. Not realizing there was a serious problem, Fleisher kept practicing, surpassing the seven or eight hours that was expected of concert pianists in that era. “;I was overpracticing,”; he said. And the problem grew worse.

Unbeknownst to him and his host of doctors, Fleisher had developed a condition called focal dystonia, a neurological disorder that triggers involuntary muscle spasms. It is a form of repetitive stress, but is unlike the more familiar carpal tunnel syndrome in that it does not respond to surgery, and exercise usually only exacerbates the symptoms.

“;When I wanted to use (the affected fingers), they would contract. They would be getting this false message from my brain,”; Fleisher said. “;Fiddlers get it. French horn players get it in the lip.”;

Fleisher was faced with losing his concert career and his place in the limelight. It was an era when classical music still rated high in popular culture. Leonard Bernstein was performing on television with his “;Young People's Concerts.”; Pianist Van Cliburn got a ticker-tape parade in New York after winning the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 1958.

“;I was in a pretty deep funk for a couple of years,”; Fleisher recalled. From a clean-cut, Clark Kentish appearance, “;I grew a beard. I grew a ponytail. I didn't have the courage to buy a motorcycle, so I got me a Vespa. ... And I tooled around Baltimore with great abandon.

“;And then, after about two years of this self-pity, I came to my senses and realized that my connection was to music and not just via being a two-handed piano player.”;

Fleisher rebuilt his career. He honed his teaching at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore and took up conducting, receiving acclaim for his precise, emotional expression. His studied and recorded pieces written for the left hand only, again to great praise.

At the same time, Fleisher pursued any and all remedies for his hand. He tried massage, acupuncture, hypnosis, all manner of physical therapy. He would get treatments “;several times every day,”; he said. “;It was kind of wild. ... It's all a bit of a soap opera.”;

He had carpal tunnel surgery and tried to make a comeback in a widely publicized concert in 1981. But the results were unsatisfactory, and he returned to performing left-hand repertoire.

Finally, in the early 1990s, Fleisher came across a solution from the National Institutes of Health: Botox. The substance, now known as a nonsurgical way to get a face lift, paralyzed the muscles that were contracting spontaneously. Within days, Fleisher was regaining control over his hand. His 30-year struggle was coming to an end.

“;The listener was immediately impressed by the pearly beauty of Fleisher's sounds—as gentle as it was firm, ruminative and intensely poetic yet without any smearing of the melodic line,”; wrote Washington Post critic Tim Page after a 1996 concert at Carnegie Hall, one of the first in Fleisher's comeback. “;I would rather listen to Fleisher, even in his current, delicate shape, than to most other pianists now before the public.”;

FLEISHER now gets Botox injections every few months, which, along with a deep massage technique called Rolfing, allow him to continue performing.

His first CD of two-handed music in 2004, called “;Two Hands,”; was named one of the best of the year by the New York Times. In 2007, Fleisher received a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievement.

He especially enjoys teaching—he will be giving a master class for young musicians on Friday—and over the years, he has found that teaching has benefited his own performance, as well.

  “;I couldn't do as I used to, which would be to push the student off the chair and say, 'This is way I think it should go,'”; Fleisher said. “;I had to somehow find the language to communicate all those intangibles, the ephemeral aspects of a great art, as far as I could in words. It made me a lot more precise, a lot more specific and clarified a lot of things in my own mind.”;

One gets a sense of that clarity when Fleisher discusses his program here, the first since the 1960s, which will feature his wife, Katherine Jacobsen Fleisher. The recital will feature several dance-inspired works by Schubert, Brahms, Ravel and Dvorak.

“;Music is the art that defies gravity,”; Fleisher said. “;It passes in time; it's a horizontal activity. And the dance is certainly one of the prime examples of that antigravitational force. So we thought we'd try to cook up a program that's all dance.”;