In the fall of 1981, contract and budget troubles led to a lockout of the BSO musicians by management. The impasse dragged on for about four months. Fleisher decided to do something about the situation. "I just got in touch with board members I knew well and said, 'Can we talk?' " he says.
The talk proved highly productive.
"Leon was instrumental in starting the Friends of the Symphony," says Marvine, who has been in the BSO since 1978. "The group raised a lot of money, which allowed management to make a settlement. We are so indebted to Leon."
Kolker seconds that.
"I was in charge of benefit concerts that the musicians gave during the lockout," Kolker says. "We did some chamber concerts, but we also wanted to do a big orchestra concert. I called Leon and asked if he would conduct it. Without hesitation, he said yes."
Fleisher also volunteered to round up a big-name soloist for the benefit at the Lyric Opera House, where the BSO was then based. He delivered quite a box office draw, Andre Watts, a former student of Fleisher's at the Peabody Conservatory, where Fleisher has taught since 1959.
His effort to save the orchestra didn't end with the hefty program of Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Copland he conducted on that occasion.
"He was in the room to help negotiate a settlement with management," Marvine says. "I still remember him with his long, wild hair, sitting through grueling hours of talks during a two-night marathon."
Fleisher also helped put together fundraising telethons for the BSO aired by WJZ-TV (one of the station's staffers who participated was a young co-anchor named Oprah Winfrey).
When the BSO went on strike in 1988, Fleisher was there yet again, organizing and conducting a benefit concert for the players.
"I have really warm feelings for this group," he says. The feelings are mutual.
Kolker says that Fleisher "always seemed to only be thinking about our own good. He's a real mensch."
Even without that above-and-beyond help that Fleisher repeatedly offered the orchestra, that bond would have been strong, for it was first forged artistically.
"He's a musician's musician," Marvine says. "His depth of feeling in music, and his ability to express it, is as good as it gets."
Fleisher demonstrated that gift while exploring the left-hand repertoire in numerous performances over the years with the BSO, some of them recorded (his account of Ravel's Concerto for Left-Hand, conducted by Comissiona, remains a benchmark).
