In 1948 a Tel Aviv conservatory rejected a three-year-old because he was physically too small to hold a violin. His mother bought him a toy one instead, and he taught himself melodies by ear. That child was Itzhak Perlman. This episode traces his journey from the radio broadcast of Jascha Heifetz that sparked his obsession, through the polio he contracted at four that left him playing seated with braces and crutches, to his arrival in New York at 13 to study with Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay at Juilliard and a nerve-defying appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

We follow his Carnegie Hall debut in 1963, the Leventritt competition win in 1964, and the tours that introduced his warm golden tone to the world's great orchestras, then watch him refuse the pedestal by recording jazz with Oscar Peterson, playing bluegrass and klezmer, singing a j ...