Ok, I'm sure this has probably been posted at some time in the past, but
I've just seen it for the first time, so I figured I'd forward it to the
list.  An amazing story, perhaps a little sentimental, but certainly an
inspiration.

   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 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 [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.

   --Jack Riemer, Houston Chronicle

Krishan Oberoi
Providence, USA