Yehudi Menuhin

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Yehudi Menuhin
Image:YehudiMenuhinStageDoorCanteen.jpg
from the film Stage Door Canteen, 1943
Background information
Born April 22 1916(1916-04-22)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Died March 12 1999
Berlin, Germany
Genre(s) Classical
Occupation(s) Conductor, pedagogue, violinist, writer
Instrument(s) Violin
Years active 1923-1999
Notable instrument(s)
Violin
Giovanni Bussetto 1680
Giovanni Grancino 1695
Guarneri filius Andrea 1703
Soil Stradivarius
Prince Khevenhüller 1733 Stradivari
Guarneri del Gesù 1739
Lord Wilton 1742 Guarneri del Gesù

Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE (April 22, 1916 – March 12, 1999) was an American-born violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. Though born in New York City, New York, he later became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and in 1985, of the United Kingdom.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early career

Born to Russian Jewish parents, his sisters were concert pianist and human rights worker Hephzibah Menuhin and the pianist, painter, and poet Yaltah Menuhin. Menuhin began violin instruction at age three under violinist Sigmund Anker. His first solo violin performance was at the age of seven with the San Francisco Symphony in 1923. Menuhin later studied under the Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu, after which he made several recordings with his sister Hephzibah. He was also a student of Louis Persinger and Adolf Busch.

[edit] World War II musician

Yehudi Menuhin performed for allied soldiers during World War II, and went with the composer Benjamin Britten to perform for inmates of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, after its liberation in April 1945. He returned to Germany in 1947 to perform under the baton of conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler as an act of reconciliation, becoming the first Jewish musician to do so following the Holocaust. After building early success on richly romantic and tonally opulent performances, he experienced considerable physical and artistic difficulties caused by overwork during World War II as well as unfocused and unstructured early training. Careful practice and study combined with meditation and yoga (the latter he mostly learned from B.K.S. Iyengar) helped him overcome many of these problems. His profound and considered musical interpretations are nearly universally acclaimed. When he finally started recording, he was known for practicing by deconstructing music phrases one note at a time.

Menuhin continued to perform to an advanced age, becoming known for profound interpretations of an austere quality, as well as for his explorations of music outside the classical realm.

[edit] World interactions

Menuhin credited the German-Jewish philosopher Constantin Brunner with providing him with "a theoretical framework within which I could fit the events and experiences of life" (Conversations with Menuhin: 32-34).

In 1952, Menuhin met and befriended the influential yogi B.K.S. Iyengar before he had come to prominence outside India. Menuhin arranged for Iyengar to teach abroad in London, Switzerland, Paris and elsewhere. This was the first time that many Westerners had been exposed to yoga.

Menuhin made several recordings with the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, who had been criticized for conducting in Germany during the Nazi era. Menuhin defended Furtwangler, noting that the conductor had helped a number of Jewish musicians to flee Nazi Germany.

In 1962 he established the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey. He also established the music program at the Nueva School in Hillsborough, California sometime around then. In 1965 he received an honorary knighthood.

Menuhin's pupils included Nigel Kennedy, Hungarian violist Csaba Erdelyi and violist Paul Coletti. Arguably the most famous of Menuhin's violins is the Lord Wilton Guarneri del Gesù made in 1742.

In the 1980s Menuhin wrote and oversaw the creation of a "Music Guides" series of books; each covered musical instruments with one on the human voice. Menuhin wrote some whilst others were edited by different authors.

[edit] Later career

Menuhin regularly returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, sometimes performing with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. One of the more memorable, later performances was of the violin concerto of Sir Edward Elgar, which Menuhin had recorded with the composer for HMV in London in 1932. He also hosted the PBS telecast of the gala opening concert of the orchestra from Davies Symphony Hall in September 1980. During the 1970s, '80s and '90s, he made jazz recordings with Stéphane Grappelli, classical recordings with L. Subramaniam and albums of Eastern music with the great sitarist Ravi Shankar. In 1983 he founded the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists in Folkestone, Kent. In 1985 he was awarded British citizenship and was now entitled to the accolade "Sir Yehudi" as his knighthood was no longer honorary. In 1990 he was the first conductor for the Asian Youth Orchestra which toured around Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong with Julian Lloyd Webber and a group of young talented musicians from all over Asia.

[edit] Personal life

Soon after his death, the Royal Academy of Music acquired the Yehudi Menuhin Archive, one of the most comprehensive collections ever assembled by an individual musician.

Yehudi Menuhin was married twice. He first married Nola Nicholas, daughter of an Australian industrialist, and sister of Hephzibah Menuhin's first husband Lindsay Nicholas. They had two children, Krov and Zamira. Following their divorce, he married the British ballerina and actress Diana Gould, with whom he had two sons, Gerard and Jeremy, a pianist.

The name Yehudi means 'Jew' in Hebrew.

In October 2004, the New Internationalist magazine tells the story of Menuhin's 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." ”

Ironically, in November 2005 his son Gerard was dismissed from his post as chairman of the Yehudi-Menuhin-Stiftung for alleged neo-Nazi opinions.[1]

A picture of Menuhin as a child is sometimes used as part of a Thematic Apperception Test.[2]

Lord Menuhin died in Berlin, Germany following a brief illness, from complications of bronchitis.

[edit] Awards and Recognitions

In 1987 his recording of the Elgar: Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85 with Julian Lloyd Webber won the BRIT Award for Best British Classical Recording. The recording was also chosen as the finest ever version by BBC Music Magazine. In 1990 he was awarded the Glenn Gould Prize in recognition of his lifetime of contributions. He received a Doctorate Honoris causa from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. In 1993 he was created a life peer as Baron Menuhin, of Stoke d'Abernon in the County of Surrey.[3]

[edit] Cultural References

The catchphrase "Who's Yehoodi?" popular in the 1930s and 1940s was inspired by Menuhin's guest appearance on a radio show, where Jerry Colonna turned "Yehoodi" into a widely recognized slang term for a mysteriously absent person. It eventually lost all of its original connection with Menuhin.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Menuhin, Diana (1984). Fiddler's Moll. Life With Yehudi. New York: St Martin's Press. ISBN 0312288190. 
  • Menuhin, Yehudi (1977). Unfinished Journey. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0394410513. 
  • Subramaniam, L.; Menuhin, Yehudi; Directed by Jean Henri Meunier. (1999). Violin From the Heart (documentary film) [DVD].

[edit] References

  1. ^ Roger Boyes. "Menuhin's son forced to resign over 'anti-Semitic' interviews", The Times, 15 November 2005. Retrieved on 2007-01-27. 
  2. ^ "A young boy is contemplating a violin...", University of Tennessee. Retrieved on 2007-01-27. 
  3. ^ Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin: thepeerage.com. Retrieved on 2007-08-04.

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Léonie Sonning Music Prize laureates

2008  Arvo Pärt

v • d • e
Glenn Gould Prize laureates

R. Murray Schafer (1987) · Yehudi Menuhin (1990) · Oscar Peterson (1993) · Tōru Takemitsu (1996) · Yo-Yo Ma (1999) · Pierre Boulez (2002) · André Previn (2005)

v • d • e
Laureates of the Wolf Prize in Arts
Architecture

Ralph Erskine (1983) · Fumihiko Maki / Giancarlo De Carlo (1988) · Frank Gehry / Jørn Utzon / Denys Lasdun (1992) · Frei Otto / Aldo van Eyck (1996) · Álvaro Siza Vieira (2001) · Jean Nouvel (2005)

Music

Vladimir Horowitz / Olivier Messiaen / Joseph Tal (1982) · Isaac Stern / Krzysztof Penderecki (1987) · Yehudi Menuhin / Luciano Berio (1991) · Zubin Mehta / György Ligeti (1995) · Pierre Boulez / Riccardo Muti (2000) · Mstislav Rostropovich / Daniel Barenboim (2004)

Painting

Marc Chagall / Antoni Tàpies (1981) · Jasper Johns (1986) · Anselm Kiefer (1990) · Gerhard Richter (1994) · Louise Bourgeois (2002)

Sculpture

Eduardo Chillida (1984) · Claes Oldenburg (1989) · Bruce Nauman (1993) · James Turrell (1998) · Louise Bourgeois (2002)

Agriculture · Arts · Chemistry · Mathematics · Medicine · Physics
Persondata
NAME Menuhin, Yehudi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, Yehudi (full name with title)
SHORT DESCRIPTION Violinist and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City, New York, United States
DATE OF DEATH March 12, 1999
PLACE OF DEATH
ca:Yehudi Menuhin

da:Yehudi Menuhin de:Yehudi Menuhin el:Γεχούντι Μενουχίν es:Yehudi Menuhin fa:یهودی منوهین fr:Yehudi Menuhin io:Yehudi Menuhin it:Yehudi Menuhin he:יהודי מנוחין hu:Yehudi Menuhin nl:Yehudi Menuhin ja:ユーディ・メニューイン no:Yehudi Menuhin pl:Yehudi Menuhin pt:Yehudi Menuhin qu:Yehudi Menuhin fi:Yehudi Menuhin sv:Yehudi Menuhin zh:耶胡迪·梅纽因

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