Word: menuhin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...violin is Yehudi Menuhin's first concern, but not his only one. The 63-year-old virtuoso is an outspoken opponent of energy waste and pollution: to help eliminate both, he is currently test-riding a battery-powered bicycle. Meanwhile at the 31st Frankfurt Book Fair last week, Menuhin received the booksellers' peace prize of $14,000 as "a man who understands music as a medium for peace." Using the medium as a measure of his appreciation, Menuhin rewarded his audience with the chaconne from Bach's Partita in D Minor...
Bach: Six Sonatas for Clavier and Violin (Violinist Henryk Szeryng, Harpsichordist Helmut Walcha, Philips; 2 LPs). Several virtuosos have recorded these crystallizations of the baroque sonata style (Oistrakh, Menuhin, Laredo), but none can beat the suave brilliance of this set. Szeryng plays with an impassioned aristocrat's clarity, grace and brio. Walcha, a virtuoso in his own right, is appropriately brought to the fore by Philips' bright tonal presence...
Grapelli's sound, his swing, is unmistakable. He can play exactly as he did in 1934. He has also recorded some modern works with Jean-Luc Ponty. And he has even recorded with Yehudi Menuhin. He will play his versatile violin tomorrow night with the Diz Disley trio at the Berklee Performance Center...
...things that one would think would simply destroy the form of the piece. But he makes it work because of the tremendous conviction and love that come over with it. The excesses and exaggerations that he applies have shocked lots of people, but with him they are fantastic." Yehudi Menuhin finds nothing surprising in such an approach. "Rubato is part of Slava's way of being," he explains. "He doesn't have to follow a dry metronomic beat. As a string player, he knows what it is to form a phrase, and this is something that not many conductors know...
...perhaps the final judgement on "Unfinished Journey," for all its articulate (and selective) revelation, is indicated by Menuhin himself. "Rightly or wrongly," he writes, "I imagine that I know a human being from his or her musical performance. Performing, an artist lays himself bare, he exposes the secret temperament, the hidden motive, he risks the psychological revelation." Particularly for a master of the most exquisitely expressive of instruments, the deepest unfolding of self is the music. Of that continuing intimacy, "Unfinished Journey" is a gentle elucidation...