Itzhak Perlman

There is a freedom that I think develops, if you will, or that you get to claim when you've put in the time, not to master the instrument necessarily, because I don't know if you ever master an instrument [laughs] honestly.

Even Itzhak Perlman.

I mean, I think there was a Jascha Heifetz quote who said, "If I don't practice every day, I notice.

If I don't practice for two days, then the audience notices." And I feel like there, there's a lot of truth to that, that once you commit to the instrument, you have to sort of keep learning and keep growing.

So she tells a ma'aseh that when she was a young girl, she was a violin prodigy.

She was the Talmid Muvhak, the private student of Itzhak Perlman.

And then as an early teenager, she's playing a difficult piece on her violin, and all of a sudden she hears, like, this grotesque pop, and that was the end of it.

She popped some tendon in her finger, and that was the end of her professional career, and she was in free fall because she didn't know how to answer, "Ayeka," who are you? Not Ayeka from a standpoint of you're Adam HaRishon and you ate from the Keitz Hadas and you're ashamed and you're guilty.

We'll do a couple more.

So the Kraken or Itzhak Perlman.

Oh.

Wow.

That's

tough stuff.

Yeah, because I definitely grew up listening to Itzhak Perlman play the Paganini Caprices and stuff.

They had this record.

And I just love this about you.

And I can so relate to it.

Like when I met Yitzhak Perlman, like my head exploded.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I hope so.

So was there ever a time when you were playing with someone else or asked to play with someone else and you had to kind of pinch yourself and say, wow, I'm playing with Isaac Perlman or Paul McCartney or anybody in your fame or aura?

All the time.

Well, first of all, with Tim O'Brien, Tim being one of my heroes, I got asked to play a tour in Europe with him in 91.

There are 122 days left.

Who has birthdays? Right at the very top, violinist Itzhak Perlman is 81 years old.

Flight of the Bumblebee.

Have you ever watched him play that? I have.

Gunter Hampel was born in 1937, German master of free jazz, famous for his avant-garde work on the vibraphone, clarinet, and saxophone.

Itzhak Perlman was born in 1945, one of the greatest classical violin virtuosos and conductors of the 20th and 21st centuries.

L. Wolf Gilbert was born in 1886, legendary Tin Pan Alley lyricist who wrote the words to early American music standards like Waiting for the Robert E. Lee.

Alan J. Lerner was born in 1918, half of the legendary Broadway duo Lerner and Lowe.