She held my arm and spoke to me in loving gentile voice as I sat in the passenger car of the Metra. “Thank you” she said in her beautiful way, for making my ordinary life so extra ordinary. I looked into her eyes and asked, “What do you mean?”

“You know, Angels were there tonight.” I nodded yes. I knew they certainly were. “It was none of my doing.” I said. She said, “But it was on your list and I would not have done it had you not wanted to go.”

We were discussing my bucket list. I wanted to hear Itzhak Perlman before I was too old or too dead. She went along since it was for charity and the tickets came at a dear price. She rules the house and the check book or we would be broke.

We started the evening with a pair of martini’s and boarded the train for Chicago.48 minutes later in the cold March wind we were vying for a taxi and found our way to the “Rhapsody” a romantic glass walled restaurant with panoramic views of Adams street and had a gourmet dinner served neatly and precisely by an attentive waiter in formal black and never felt rushed or chilled as we sat together taking in the atmosphere and sensing with anticipation the beginning of the occasion at Chicago Symphony Hall billed as the “Concert to End Polio”

The ascent to the balcony was three flights of luxuriously carpeted scarlet, a good disguise for an aerobic workout. Breathing hard but happy for the wind and the cardiac output, we made it together at a gymnast’s pace. Secretly I was grateful for the top and the gradual descent to the left lower balcony B 3 and 5. The view was perfect. And we were just in time.

The first violinist stood and paraded to the podium and announced James DePreist. The audience knew more than I and stood with ovation. Some of us not completely understanding what it was we were in for sighed in harmony as a compellingly strong but crippled Black Man rolled his electric chair out onto a podium and turned slightly to feel the praise of the audience. Without a pause he turned as if a soldier on parade called the CSO to attention and conducted without the need for sheet music “The Corsair Overture, Op 21”. For ten minutes the attending fans were breathless as the Maestro and Chairman of Orchestral studies at Julliard teased them with greatness.

Stravinsky was next, twenty nine minutes of “Suite from The Firebird” Flowed as if from the conductors fingertips his baton accentuating the deepest base violins from the introduction thru “Dances of the Princesses” and “Dance of the King” building to a crescendo followed by the subdued anticlimactic Berceuse and exploding in quite a grand  “Finale”

No intermission was wanted or planned.

A Rotarian from Sweden spoke next of the connection between Dr. DePreist and Virtuoso Perlman. Polio had crippled them both and both had survived to have extraordinary creative impact on the world of classical music.

To rounds of applause and all voices raised in respectful awe, Itshak Perlman carried his size ten boots with metal stirrup braces flashing and weakened legs trailing his powerful stature on two aluminum crutches. The swelling sound of the audience drowned out the sound of Perlman’s legs dragging on the wooden ramp up to the blue velvet chair that would be his throne. The big man sat sprawling his legs out before him and dropped his crutches to the floor. A stage hand presented his Stradivarius and he grinned with accomplishment like a magician about to cast a spell. Bushy salt and pepper hair stood out from his large head and his furrowed brow demonstrated the concentration needed to gain the expected hush in the concert hall as he applied his bow to the strings of the violin held under his great chin with a soft white cloth. Notes, “Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op 64” flew from his instrument and hypnotized his fans with auditory splendor. His massive hands and strong fingers were in frenzy as the music echoed through the theater. Twenty seven minutes passed as one.

Nothing, however could have prepared the listener for the last scheduled piece on the program. “Liebesfreud” by Fritz Kreisler was delicious. Perlman played with his heart and soul a sound so beautiful it truly lives up to its title “Love’s Joy” in English. The notes generated by the virtuoso’s fingers and bow on a perfect instrument truly produced acoustic orgasm for all but the deaf. I was reminded of a grade school teacher Margaret Shannon who taught me to believe that in Heaven the one sensual pleasure we might expect to find was music. Indeed as the end came and the standing ovation shook the symphony hall, Angels were truly present. My pretty muse was right.

And when Perlman announced an encore “A piece from Schindler’s List” the bitter sweet notes told everyone that in the end devils would never dance.

I turned to my lover as the train lurched forward and home to Arlington Heights and hugged her in silent reverie.

Theodore Morrison Homa MD