The Lord Menuhin | |
|---|---|
 Menuhin in 1976 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | (1916-04-22)22 April 1916 New York City,New York, USA |
| Died | 12 March 1999(1999-03-12) (aged 82) Berlin, Germany |
| Genres | Classical music |
| Occupation(s) | Violinist, conductor, educator, humanitarian |
| Instrument(s) | Violin,Viola,Piano |
| Years active | 1926–1999 |
| Labels | RCA Victor,EMI,Deutsche Grammophon |
| Website | menuhin |
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin (22 April 1916 – 12 March 1999), was an American-born British violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is widely considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century.
Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City toMoshe Menuhin, a Lithuanian Jew fromGomel in modernBelarus, and Marutha, aCrimean Karaite. Through his father Moshe, he was descended from a rabbinical dynasty.[1] Moshe and Marutha (née Sher) met in theMutasarrifate of Jerusalem (part ofhistoric Palestine under theOttoman Empire) before marrying in New York in 1914. In late 1919, the pair became American citizens and changed the family name from Mnuchin to Menuhin.[2] Menuhin's sisters were concert pianist and human rights activistHephzibah, and pianist, painter and poetYaltah.
Menuhin's first violin instruction was at age four by Sigmund Anker (1891–1958); his parents had wantedLouis Persinger to teach him, and Persinger agreed. Menuhin took lessons for a while from Persinger at his Hyde Street studio. He made his first public solo appearance in November 1921, at a pupil's concert.[3] On 29 February 1924, he formally debuted in a solo performance for a matinee concert given by theSan Francisco Symphony at theOakland Auditorium under the direction of Alfred Hertz, with Persinger playing the piano accompaniment.[4] This was followed by a recital at the Scottish Rite Hall. His reputation preceded him to New York for his debut there on 17 March 1926, at the Manhattan Opera House.[5] Persinger then agreed to teach him and accompanied him on the piano for his first few solo recordings in 1928 and 1929.
Julia Boyd records:
On 12 April 1929 it [theSemperoper] cancelled its advertised programme to make way for a performance by the twelve-year-old Yehudi Menuhin. That night he played the Bach, Beethoven and Brahms violin concertos to an ecstatic audience ... The week before, Yehudi had played in Berlin with the Philharmonic underBruno Walter to an equally rapturous response.[6]
A newspaper critic said of his Berlin performance: "There steps a fat little blond boy on the podium, and wins at once all hearts as in an irresistibly ludicrous way, like a penguin, he alternately places one foot down, then the other. But wait: you will stop laughing when he puts his bow to the violin to play Bach's violin concerto in E major no.2."[7]
When the Menuhins moved to Paris, Persinger suggested Menuhin go to Persinger's old teacher, Belgian virtuoso and pedagogueEugène Ysaÿe. Menuhin did have one lesson with Ysaÿe, but he disliked Ysaÿe's teaching method and his advanced age. Instead, he went to Romanian composer and violinistGeorge Enescu, under whose tutelage he made recordings with several piano accompanists, including his sister Hephzibah. He was also a student ofAdolf Busch inBasel. He stayed in the Swiss city for a bit more than a year, where he started to take lessons in German and Italian as well.
According toHenry A. Murray, Menuhin wrote:
Actually, I was gazing in my usual state of being half absent in my own world and half in the present. I have usually been able to "retire" in this way. I was also thinking that my life was tied up with the instrument and would I do it justice?
— Yehudi Menuhin, personal communication, 31 October 1993[8]
His first concerto recording was made in 1931, Bruch's G minor, under Sir Landon Ronald in London, the labels calling him "Master Yehudi Menuhin". In 1932 he recordedEdward Elgar'sViolin Concerto in B minor forHis Master's Voice in London, with the composer himself conducting; in 1934, uncut, Paganini's D major Concerto withEmile Sauret's cadenza in Paris underPierre Monteux. Between 1934 and 1936, he made the first integral recording ofJohann Sebastian Bach'ssonatas and partitas for solo violin, although his Sonata No. 2, in A minor, was not released until all six were transferred to CD.
His interest in the music ofBéla Bartók prompted him to commission a work from him – theSonata for Solo Violin, which, completed in 1943 and first performed by Menuhin in New York in 1944, was the composer's penultimate work.
He performed forAllied soldiers duringWorld War II and, accompanied on the piano by English composerBenjamin Britten, for the surviving inmates of a number ofconcentration camps in June and July 1945 after their liberation in April of the same year, most famouslyBergen-Belsen. He returned to Germany in 1947 to play concerto concerts with theBerlin Philharmonic underWilhelm Furtwängler as an act of reconciliation, the first Jewish musician to do so in the wake of theHolocaust, saying to Jewish critics that he wanted to rehabilitate Germany's music and spirit.
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Menuhin credited German philosopherConstantin Brunner with providing him with "a theoretical framework within which I could fit the events and experiences of life".[9]
He andLouis Kentner (brother-in-law of his wife,Diana) gave the first performance ofWilliam Walton's Violin Sonata, in Zürich on 30 September 1949.
Following his role as a member of the awards jury at the 1955Queen Elisabeth Music Competition, Menuhin secured aRockefeller Foundation grant for the financially strapped Grand Prize winner at the event,Argentine violinistAlberto Lysy. Menuhin made Lysy his only personal student, and the two toured extensively throughout the concert halls of Europe. The young protégé later established theInternational Menuhin Music Academy (IMMA)[10] inGstaad, in his honor.[11]
Menuhin made several recordings with the German conductorWilhelm Furtwängler, who had been criticized for conducting in Germany during theNazi era. Menuhin defended Furtwängler, noting that the conductor had helped a number of Jewish musicians to flee Nazi Germany.
In 1957, he founded theMenuhin Festival Gstaad inGstaad, Switzerland. In 1962, he established theYehudi Menuhin School inStoke d'Abernon, Surrey. He also established the music program atThe Nueva School inHillsborough, California, sometime around then. In 1965 he received an honoraryknighthood from the British monarchy. In the same year, Australian composerMalcolm Williamson wrote a violin concerto for Menuhin. He performed the concerto many times and recorded it at its premiere at theBath Festival in 1965. Originally known as the Bath Assembly,[12] the festival was first directed by the impresario Ian Hunter in 1948. After the first year the city tried to run the festival itself, but in 1955 asked Hunter back. In 1959 Hunter invited Menuhin to become artistic director of the festival. Menuhin accepted, and retained the post until 1968.[13]
Menuhin also had a long association and deep friendship withRavi Shankar, beginning in 1952, leading to their joint performance in 1966 at the Bath Festival and the recording of theirGrammy Award-winning albumWest Meets East (1967).[14] During this time, he commissioned composerAlan Hovhaness to write a concerto for violin, sitar, and orchestra to be performed by himself and Shankar. The resulting work, entitledShambala (c. 1970), with a fully composed violin part and space for improvisation from the sitarist, is the earliest known work for sitar with western symphony orchestra, predating Shankar's own sitar concertos, but Menuhin and Shankar never recorded it.
Menuhin also worked with famous jazz violinistStéphane Grappelli in the 1970s onJalousie, an album of 1930s classics led by duetting violins backed by the Alan Claire Trio.
In 1975, in his role as president of theInternational Music Council, he declared October 1 as International Music Day. The first International Music Day, organised by the International Music Council, was held that same year, in accordance with the resolution taken at the 15th IMC General Assembly in Lausanne in 1973.[15]
In 1977, Menuhin and Ian Stoutzker founded the charity Live Music Now, the largest outreach music project in the UK. Live Music Now pays and trains professional musicians to work in the community, bringing the experience to those who rarely get an opportunity to hear or see live music performance.At theEdinburgh Festival Menuhin premieredPriaulx Rainier's violin concertoDue Canti e Finale, which he had commissioned Rainier to write. He also commissioned her last work,Wildlife Celebration, which he performed in aid ofGerald Durrell'sWildlife Conservation Trust.
In 1978, Menuhin played with the Québécois fiddlerJean Carignan for a unique presentation of thePetit concerto pour Carignan et orchestre composed byAndré Gagnon. This concert appeared on his TV showThe Music of Man broadcast by theCBC.
In 1983, Menuhin and Robert Masters founded theYehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists, today one of the world's leading forums for young talent. Many of itsprizewinners have gone on to become prominent violinists, includingTasmin Little,Nikolaj Znaider,Ilya Gringolts,Julia Fischer,Daishin Kashimoto andRay Chen.
In the 1980s, Menuhin wrote and oversaw the creation of a "Music Guides" series of books; each covered a musical instrument, with one on the human voice. Menuhin wrote some, while others were edited by different authors.
In 1991, Menuhin was awarded theWolf Prize by the Israeli Government. In the IsraeliKnesset he gave an acceptance speech in which he criticised Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank:
This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling amongst them.[16]
Menuhin regularly returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, sometimes performing with theSan Francisco Symphony Orchestra. One of the more memorable later performances was ofEdward Elgar's Violin Concerto, which Menuhin had recorded with the composer in 1932.
On 22 April 1978, along withStéphane Grappelli, Yehudi playedPick Yourself Up, taken from theMenuhin & Grappelli Play Berlin, Kern, Porter and Rodgers & Hart album as the interval act at the23rd Eurovision Song Contest forTF1. The performance came direct from the studios of TF1 and not that of the venue (Palais des Congrès), where the contest was being held.
Menuhin hosted thePBS telecast of the gala opening concert of the San Francisco Symphony fromDavies Symphony Hall in September 1980.
His recording contract withEMI lasted almost 70 years and is the longest in the history of the music industry. He made his first recording at age 13 in November 1929, and his last in 1999, when he was nearly 83 years old. He recorded over 300 works for EMI, both as a violinist and as a conductor. In 2009 EMI released a 51-CD retrospective of Menuhin's recording career, titledYehudi Menuhin: The Great EMI Recordings. In 2016, the Menuhin centenary year, Warner Classics (formerly EMI Classics) issued a milestone collection of 80 CDs entitledThe Menuhin Century, curated by his long-time friend and protégéBruno Monsaingeon, who selected the recordings and sourced rare archival materials to tell Menuhin's story.
From 1984 until his death in 1999 he was the first guest conductor ofSinfonia Varsovia with which he performed over 300 times (nearly half of which were between 1996 and 1998).[17] He said that "working with no other orchestra gave me as much satisfaction as my work, as soloist and conductor, with the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra."[18] In hisUnfinished Journey: Twenty Years Later he added "It was a true inspiration to spend as much time with them [Sinfonia Varsovia] as possible, to enjoy the deep satisfaction I derive from our music-making together.".[19] In 1991, he became Principal Guest Conductor of theEnglish Symphony Orchestra, a position he also held until his death.
In 1990 Menuhin was the first conductor for theAsian Youth Orchestra which toured around Asia, including Japan, Taiwan,Singapore and Hong Kong withJulian Lloyd Webber and a group of young talented musicians from all over Asia.
Menuhin was married twice, first to Nola Nicholas, daughter of an Australian industrialist and sister ofHephzibah Menuhin's first husband Lindsay Nicholas. They had two children, Krov and Zamira (who married pianistFou Ts'ong). Following their 1947 divorce he married the British ballerina and actressDiana Gould, whose mother was the pianistEvelyn Suart and stepfather was Admiral SirCecil Harcourt. The couple had two sons,Gerard, notable as aHolocaust denier andfar right activist, andJeremy, a pianist. A third child died shortly after birth. In the 1960s and 1970s they lived inHighgate at 2The Grove, a house later owned bySting.[20]
The nameYehudi means "Jew" inHebrew. In an interview republished in October 2004, he recounted toNew Internationalist magazine the story of his name:
Obliged to find an apartment of their own, my parents searched the neighbourhood and chose one within walking distance of the park. Showing them out after they had viewed it, the landlady said: "And you'll be glad to know I don't take Jews." Her mistake made clear to her, the antisemitic landlady was renounced, and another apartment found. But her blunder left its mark. Back on the street my mother made a vow. Her unborn baby would have a label proclaiming his race to the world. He would be called "The Jew".[21]
Menuhin became an honorary citizen of Switzerland, and then also of the United Kingdom, in 1970 and 1985, respectively.[22][23][24]
Along withAlbert Einstein, Menuhin was one of the sponsors of thePeoples' World Convention (PWC), also known as Peoples' World Constituent Assembly (PWCA), which took place in 1950–51 at Palais Electoral,Geneva, Switzerland.[25][26]
Menuhin was apescetarian.[27]
In 1953,Life published photos of him in various esoteric yoga positions.[28] In 1952, Menuhin was in India, wherePrime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru introduced him to an influential yogiB. K. S. Iyengar, who was largely unknown outside the country.[28] Menuhin arranged for Iyengar to teach abroad in London, Switzerland, Paris, and elsewhere. He became one of the first prominent yoga masters teaching in the West.
Menuhin also took lessons fromIndra Devi, who opened the first yoga studio in the U.S. in Los Angeles in 1948.[29] Both Devi and Iyengar were students ofKrishnamacharya, a famous yoga master in India.
Menuhin died in Martin Luther Hospital[30] in Berlin, Germany, from complications of bronchitis on 12 March 1999, just 40 days before his 83rd birthday. Soon after his death, theRoyal Academy of Music acquired theYehudi Menuhin Archive, which includes sheet music marked up for performance, correspondence, news articles and photographs relating to Menuhin, autograph musical manuscripts, and several portraits ofPaganini.[31]
Menuhin played a number of famous violins, arguably the most renowned of which is theLord Wilton Guarnerius 1742. Others included theGiovanni Bussetto 1680,Giovanni Grancino 1695,Guarneri filius Andrea 1703,Soil Stradivarius,Prince Khevenhüller 1733 Stradivari, andGuarneri del Gesù 1739.
In his autobiographyUnfinished Journey, Menuhin wrote: "A great violin is alive; its very shape embodies its maker's intentions, and its wood stores the history, or the soul, of its successive owners. I never play without feeling that I have released or, alas, violated spirits."[32]
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