Itzhak breaks a string

Subject: Itzhak breaks a string
From: PaulBobbyBuzz
Date: 30 May 01 - 11:37 AM

Haven't been here for awhile...don't know if this has been posted aready...my wife just got it in her e-mail, and I thought it appropriate for Mudcatteers. It's a little long, but well worth the trip. PBB

"Making Music" (By Jack Riemer) 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 awesome sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches 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 this 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 definition of life - not just for artists but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he 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.

"There are no victories at bargain prices." (Dwight D. Eisenhower) "But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57 (NIV)

Subject: RE: Itzhak breaks a string
From: alison
Date: 30 May 01 - 09:21 PM

great story.......

if you wonder why you got no responses.. there was another thread... they responded here

welcome back

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Itzhak breaks a string
From: Sorcha
Date: 30 May 01 - 09:41 PM

I have heard that Paganinni used to practice with one string broken, then, before a concert he would nick the string so that it would break spontaneously. He would keep playing and the audience would have no clue that he practiced it that way. Sounds real tuff to me. I don't want to try it.

I have a soprano bouzouki with 3 courses. I can't play it because I keep running out of strings........

Subject: RE: Itzhak breaks a string
From: Mark Clark
Date: 31 May 01 - 12:14 AM

Sorcha, I remember reading as a boy that Paganinni could finish a piece even though one or more of his strings had broken during the performance. I didn't know that he actually practiced doing that and broke the string on purpose just to show off. Great stories, thanks to both you and Paul.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Itzhak breaks a string
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 31 May 01 - 07:32 AM

Pagannini is reputed to have had a razor inserted into the frog of his bow so that he could do the string-breaking act at strategic moments.  I'm given to understand that circumstantial details suggest that the Perlman story is a myth, which might explain why it seems to be circulating so widely at the moment as an email chainletter.  Still, it's a more entertaining one than the more common hoax virus alerts.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Itzhak breaks a string
From: Kim C
Date: 31 May 01 - 01:15 PM

I heard that Franz List used to play with one eye closed - the side closest to the audience - so people would think he was playing with both eyes closed!

Subject: RE: Itzhak breaks a string
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 31 May 01 - 01:53 PM

I have a picture in my singing practice book of a man, seated, playing his guitar ( which is placed flat on the floor in front of him ) with his toes - - he has no arms. He was a Thalidomide baby. I have captioned it "When you think you can't - - think again." The picture is NO myth.

Subject: RE: Itzhak breaks a string
From: hesperis
Date: 31 May 01 - 02:10 PM

Yeah, and there are amputees and people born without arms, who can paint with a brush held in the mouth, or in the toes.

Fascinating, eh?

I can believe that Pagannini would do that on purpose, he seems to have been quite the show-off. (Not like that's a bad thing, necessarily.)

Subject: RE: Itzhak breaks a string
From: Sorcha
Date: 31 May 01 - 02:17 PM

Actually, playing with eyes closed is not at all difficult. I do it all the time, but can't play dulcimer that way....I have to see the frets to know where I'm going. Tried to play at a campfire after dark one night; that didn't work too well either.

Subject: RE: Itzhak breaks a string
From: Allan C.
Date: 31 May 01 - 02:26 PM

The source I was given for this article was:

~Jack Riemer, Houston Chronicle, February 10, 2001~

It costs $20 for a non-subscriber to check the newspaper's archives in order to authenticate this source. For that reason, I have not pursued the matter further.