World-renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman was stricken with polio as a child. As a result, he wears braces on both legs and walks with the aid of crutches. At concerts, getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He slowly crosses the stage until he reaches his chair. He lays his crutches on the floor, slowly 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.

One fall evening in 1995, while performing at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City, Perlman had to deal with one additional handicap. Jack Reimer, a columnist with the Houston Chronicle, described the scene. "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 said, "We figured he would have to get up…to either find another violin or 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 and he played from where he had left off. He played with passion and power.

Of course, it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. But that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulate, change, recompose the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was detuning the strings to get new sounds they had never made before.