Yehudi Menuhin

[cziffra]

I have been reading the Compendium recently (my name for Humphrey Burton's biography, it really is encyclopeadic in its coverage) and the more i read of Yehudi's childhood, the more i simply can not believe it was real.  A ten year old kid decides to learn the Beethoven Violin concerto and then plays it poetically and beuatifully?

I know he's not a pianist, but i thought he would still be relevant since all musicians deal with the same process of learning and technique acquisition etc.  My question is really, how did Menuhin glide straight over all the problems most other people get stuck on?

[kempff]

He was a child prodigy, he made his debut at 7. So no wonder he can learn and play Beethoven VC beautifuly.

As he grew older, his playing suffered, they say he had some physical problems and restraints. Any idea?

[Dave_2004_G]

Beethoven and Brahms.

Fritz Busch wanted him to audition before agreeing to perform the Beethoven with such a young performer, but Menuhin had hardly started playing to him when he exclaimed that he could 'play anything with him, anytime, anywhere!'

I think at many of his concerts they needed special security to prevent people rushing the stage.

He was (arguably) the greatest child prodigy since Mozart...

Dave

[bravuraoctaves]

I have been reading the Compendium recently (my name for Humphrey Burton's biography, it really is encyclopeadic in its coverage) and the more i read of Yehudi's childhood, the more i simply can not believe it was real.  A ten year old kid decides to learn the Beethoven Violin concerto and then plays it poetically and beuatifully?

I know he's not a pianist, but i thought he would still be relevant since all musicians deal with the same process of learning and technique acquisition etc.  My question is really, how did Menuhin glide straight over all the problems most other people get stuck on?

1) He was eager
2) He was quite a good violinist at that age.

[anda]

He was a child prodigy, he made his debut at 7. So no wonder he can learn and play Beethoven VC beautifuly.

he was definitely a child prodigy - and still needed a great teacher to get to be a real violinist and musician...

[cziffra]

This discussion is really quite funny at the moment, when you think about it.  We established that Yehudi was a brilliant child prodigy and we've explained it by illustrating that he was a brilliant child prodigy. 

[kempff]

But overall, i prefer Oistrakh more.

[hodi]

he is just another one of those great prodigies.. why are you surprised.
saint saens could play the whole beethoven sonatas at the age of 12 from memory...

[quasimodo]

We established that Yehudi was a brilliant child prodigy and we've explained it by illustrating that he was a brilliant child prodigy. 

I don't agree with this, I rather think he was a child prodigy...

[dorfmouse]

Have you read his autobiography "Unfinished Journey" ? A lovely book by a humane and modest man.  He was fortunate that he had a sense of  his vocation at an exceptionally young age, and to have a family that was able to nourish this vocation in an extraordinarily supportive way that probably would be impossible nowadays. How many 3 year olds are taken regularly to concerts, state their wish to learn violin and have the concertmaster (Louis Persinger) to teach them? But that was what he got. In his book he unreservedly acknowledges the role of his teachers and the amazing dedication of his gifted parents to his musical formation. He had the young child's conviction that nothing was impossible and amazing teachers who inspired him and whom he imitated. Would he still have emerged as such a genius of interpretation with a more normal upbringing? No way to know. But one of the ways he tried to help others without his special advantages was by establishing the Yehudi Menhuin School.

[zemos]

But overall, i prefer Oistrakh more.

Agreed. (btw, it's a funny thing that most of the best violinists of the 20th century were jewish - Menuhin, Oistrakh(X2), Stern, Perlman...)

[hodi]

mendelssohn too.. he was jewish before his family converted him.. he was a good violist too..

[bernhard]

This quote may help clarify this matter:

Today’s children are too worldly, and in a certain sense, too privileged to perpetuate the classic prodigy syndrome. So much wilful authority and selfless dedication amongst teachers and parents has grown unfashionable. Anyway technology discourages protective seclusion and healthy innocence: movies and television foster more unsupervised “travelling” than the itinerant Mozart ever did.

A little over half a century ago, Yehudi Menuhin re-enacted the venerable prodigy script. Steeped in Old World values, his parents minutely guarded and supervised his regime. Louis Persinger, his violin teacher, gave him up to five lessons a week, and accompanied him on tours. At home, where his parents were never absent, he studied with private tutors. He knew no other children except for his two sisters, both of whom (like Arrau’s sister and Mozart’s) played the piano. His father clipped articles from the newspapers for him to read; uncensored, the papers were forbidden. On a guided tour of Los Angeles in 1926, 9 year-old Yehudi and his mother were shown the home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford; neither name was known to them.

(From: Joseph Horowitz – “Arrau on Music and Performance” – Dover)

So do you want to raise a prodigy? Be prepared for some serious talks with Social Services.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.