PERFORMING ARTS

Leon Fleisher

When pianist Leon Fleisher hit a low after a neurological condition took away the use of his right hand, he found his way out of the darkness through conducting and teaching. That path from despair to joy was amply on display Sunday afternoon at Johns Hopkins University's Shriver Hall, the setting for Fleisher's 80th-birthday celebration. Fleisher and some of his most gifted proteges played, individually and together, music close to his heart.

Nathaniel Kahn's touching documentary on the estimable pianist, "Two Hands," was screened. The film traces the now well-known story of Fleisher's condition and the Botox injections that restored full use of his afflicted hand. Fleisher's thoughtful rendition of Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze" serves as the film's soundtrack, and the pianist opened the playing portion with a pulsing, warm account. There, in those five minutes of walking rhythms and singing melodies, were the nuggets of his artistry: elegant restraint and a sheer beauty of tone.

Yefim Bronfman's account of Schumann's Arabesque, Op. 18, unfurled with similarly graceful filigree. Fleisher and Jonathan Biss, together at the keyboard, plumbed the profound mysteries of Schubert's Fantasie in F Minor, D. 940, filled with intertwining voices, now calling from the distance, now close and exclamatory. Bronfman and Fleisher brought as much verve and color to selections of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances as drama and power to the Schubert.

The pianist's wife, Katherine Jacobson Fleisher, his onetime student, infused sweep and detail to Mozart's Rondo in A Minor, K. 511, leading into Biss's impressive interpretation of Beethoven's Sonata No. 27 in E Minor, Op. 90. The Fleishers traced the arc in Ravel's "La Valse" from the low-rumbling passages to piercing last chord, like a dream of a lost era that arises out of the ether and, just as quickly, shatters.

-- Daniel Ginsberg

The Rumble Strips

Charles Waller, frontman of the Rumble Strips, doesn't appear to know about the latest weapons in pop music's armory. He took the Black Cat's Backstage on Sunday night with nothing more than a battered, undersize acoustic guitar, accompanied by four guys who seemed equally ignorant of today's digital devices. Yet the lack of firepower didn't hamper the band, which made an exuberant virtue of its old-fashioned approach.

The Strips are another of the recent British groups who have unearthed gold from the tailings of pre-Beatles pop. To the brisk strumming and folklike melodies of skiffle, the quartet adds horn accents derived from ska and R&B. Waller can shift from boy-next-door tenor to soulman shout, and his cohorts' harmonies sometimes draw on doo-wop. Add small-town ennui and traditional English pessimism and the result is "Time," a blithe stomper that begins with this observation: "There's nothing left for us/We're rotting in this place."

There was no detectable rot in the Rumble Strips on Sunday, when the band played most of its debut album, "Girls and Weather," for a small but enthusiastic crowd. The versatile musicians (including a supplementary bassist-percussionist) bulked up the modest sound when needed, adding trumpet and saxophone blasts to such jumpy, joyous tunes as "Clouds" and "Alarm Clock." The latter, a tale of war between man and bell, depicted the humble clock as a big-time bully, demanding, "You gotta get a job." Actually, Waller has one, and it's working out quite well.

-- Mark Jenkins