In memoriam: Lord Menuhin of Stoke d'Abernon

Musical Times, Summer 1999 by Stowell, Robin

Born in New York on 22 April 1916, Yehudi Menuhin was the son of Russian immigrants. He received his initial violin instruction as a four-year-- old in San Francisco from Sigmund Anker, furthering his studies with Louis Persinger, a former Ysaye pupil and leader of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Persinger immediately recognised the youth's talent and groomed him in the Belgian style of playing, in which virtuosity was subordinated to elegance, clarity of phrase and expression. Menuhin's progress was so rapid that he made successful early professional appearances in San Francisco (1924) and in New York (1926). After his widely acclaimed debut in Paris (6 February 1927), Menuhin sought further instruction from the Romanian violinist Georges Enesco, who exerted a profound and lasting influence on his artistic development.

Menuhin's New York debut at Carnegie Hall in a performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto with the New York Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Busch (25 November 1927), and a recital in that venue the following month with Persinger at the piano, marked the beginning of his world renown. These concerts were followed by tours throughout the USA and Europe, including debuts in Berlin (1928) and London (1929), his first gramophone recordings (1928) and further guidance from both Enesco and Adolf Busch. One of the most historic events of his youth was the performance and gramophone recording in 1932 of Elgar's Violin Concerto, conducted by the composer, then aged 75; but the culmination of Menuhin's early career was his performance of the Beethoven concerto under Toscanini at the New York Philharmonic in January 1934 and his world tour of 1935, during which he gave 110 concerts in 13 countries.

Such intensity of concert activity became routine for Menuhin. During World War Two, for example, he gave over five hundred concerts for American and Allied troops as a contribution to the war effort; and he was among the first to visit and perform at liberated concentration camps, taking as his accompanist in July 1945 none other than Benjamin Britten to reassert the survival of European culture after the horrors of war. Following the war years, Menuhin became the first foreign artist to perform in Moscow and the first to appear in the reopened Paris Opera immediately after the German occupation. He was also the first Jewish artist to perform with Wilhelm Furtwangler and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and endured much criticism for his actions, which he stoutly and courageously defended, from members of the Jewish community.

The immediate post-war years yielded a mixture of fortunes for Menuhin. He married the ballerina Diana Gould in 1947 (his unhappy first marriage to Nola Nicholas in 1938 had ended in divorce) and the couple had two sons, Gerard and Jeremy However, his concert performances in the early 1950s, while demonstrating their customary qualities of innate musicianship and intellectual understanding, also began to show up various chinks in his technical armoury, especially with regard to bow management. He began to review his whole approach to violin technique, which had been a completely instinctive process in his youth. During this period of painful self-examination and hard work his career and interests began to diversify Intellectually accomplished and a man of literary taste and excellent linguistic ability, he could converse on music, culture and politics and hold his own in any company He gradually emerged both as a leading voice in international culture, championing various causes connected with the arts, and as a positive force in creating international amity. He was outspoken about several world and political issues. Despite assassination threats, he played in 1950 for the first time in the two-year-old state of Israel. Accepting an invitation from Prime Minister Nehru, he visited India in 1952 and was captivated by its people, tradition and culture, becoming a tireless propagandist for a wider understanding of the raga and its mysteries. He also discovered yoga, which assisted him in gaining a better understanding of the mechanics of violin playing and counteracting his technical decline.

Menuhin took up residence in the UK in 1959 and became a British citizen in 1985. He became artistic director of various musical festivals, notably in Bath (1958-68), Windsor (1969-72) and Gstaad in Switzerland (1956-97). His responsibilities for artistic programming provided a catalyst for the commission of violin concertos from composers such as Lennox Berkeley and Andrzej Panufnik. Other distinguished composers who have either written or dedicated works to Menuhin have included Bartok, Bloch, Maxwell Davies, Goehr, Ben Haim, Hovhaness, Knussen, Milhaud, Martin, Maw, Rainier, Takemitsu, Walton and Williamson. Works edited by Menuhin for publication include Bartok's Sonata for solo violin, Walton's Violin Sonata and Mendelssohn's Violin Sonata and early Concerto in D minor.

Menuhin's festival experiences also fostered his career as a conductor. His formation of the Bath Festival Orchestra served as the main proving ground for his development. This Orchestra toured world-wide with Menuhin as soloist/director, and Menuhin also conducted many of the leading symphony orchestras in Europe and USA. Although he was rarely comfortable on the rostrum, and his baton technique was neither orthodox nor sophisticated, he contributed much to performances by way of his musical imagination, understanding and vision.