[Dixielandjazz] Not OKOM but well worth the read re: Itzhak Perlman

[GWW174 at aol.com]

This is rather quite inspiring!  It gave me goose bumps. Gordon of Northridge


What Remains Article from the; Houston Chronicle

On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a 
concert at Avery Fisher Hall 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 so he has braces on 
both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. 

To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is 
an unforgettable sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he rea
ches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes 
the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot 
forward. Then he bends down and picks up the 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 reverently 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 that sound meant. 
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 stage -- to either find another violin or else find another string 
for this one. 

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, and you know 
that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. 

You could see him modulating, changing, 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. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing 
everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done. 

He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and 
then he said, not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, 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. It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. 
And who knows? Perhaps that is the (way) of life - not just for artists but 
for all of us. 

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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