Bernie, Thanks for the "playing on 3 strings" story.  I've heard it before
and was very moved by it, but no longer have the source.  It is so
relevant - what you "see" is what is left over.  Thanks again, Ray
----- Original Message -----
From: Bernard Barber Ph.D.
To: Raylyn Brown
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 9:21 AM
Subject: FW: ITZHAK PERLMAN
Ray,
If you thing this would be helpful, feel free to pass it on to PIEN.
I remember Itzhak when he was first starting his career; we took him to
Disneyland in California, along with Stephen Kates, Cellist, (our adopted
son) and a good friend of Itzhak's
We all took turns pushing him around in his wheel chair. All the rides were
not just the rides offered by Disney, but many were while he was being
pushed. Talk about a thrill seeker he was it.
He has demonstrated throughout his life, if there is will there is a way.
Bernie
You might wish to delete my note to you before sending.

From: Vicki Kesselman
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 7:39 AM
To: Bernard Barber,Ph.D.
Subject: Fw: ITZHAK PERLMAN

On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a
concert at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a
Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for
him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and has braces on both legs and
walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one
step at the time, painfully and slowly is a sight. He walks painfully, yet
majestically, until he reaches his chair.
Then he sits down, slowly, put his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps
on his legs, tucks one foot back and extend the other foot forward.  Then he
bends down and picks up his violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the
conductor and proceeds to play.
By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes
his way across the stage to his chair. They remain silent while he undoes
the clasps on his legs, they wait until he is ready to
play.
But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars,
one of the strings on his violin broke.  You could hear it snap -- it went
off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what he had to do.
People who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured that he
would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp
his way off the stage -- to either find another violin or else find another
string for this one. Or wait for someone to bring him another.
But he didn't. Instead he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled
the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where
he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such
purity, as they had never heard before.
Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with
just three strings. I know that, you know that. But that night Itzhak
Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing and
recomposing the piece in his head. At one point it sounded like he was
de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made
before.
When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people
rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every
corner of the auditorium. Everyone was on their feet, screaming and
cheering, doing everything they could to show how much they appreciated what
he had done. He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to
quiet the audience, not boastfully, but in a quiet reverent tone:
"YOU KNOW, SOMETIMES IT IS THE ARTIST'S TASK TO FIND OUT HOW MUCH MUSIC YOU
CAN STILL MAKE WITH WHAT YOU HAVE LEFT."
What a powerful line that is. And who knows? Perhaps that is the way of
life -- not just for an artist but for all of us. Here is a man who has
prepared all his life to make music on a violin with four strings, who all
of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three
strings and the music he made that night with just three strings was more
beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that had ever made before,
when he had four strings.
So perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which
we live, is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then when
that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.

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