YEHUDI MENUHIN: THE VIOLIN OF THE CENTURY • Yehudi Menuhin (vn); Yit-Kin Seow (pn) • EMI DVB3101899 (DVD: 129:28) Live: Paris 10/28/1972;1 12/3/19722

BLOCH Abodah.1 RAVEL Kaddish.1 BARTÓK Sonata for Solo Violin: Fuga2

When Bruno Monsaingeon’s video, “The Art of Violin” (NVC ARTS 85801, 25:5) appeared in 2001, it seemed clear to some reviewers that the filmmaker regarded Yehudi Menuhin as the paragon of violinists. That conjecture has been confirmed by the title of his film biography. True to his idol, Monsaingeon provides a portrait of the artist unclouded by the biographical concerns that have weighed down other such enterprises—the problems surrounding Menuhin’s first marriage; his sister Hephzibah’s marriage, illness, and death; and his sister’s (Yaltah’s) bitterness. Not devoting undue (or, in some cases, any) attention to these matters, Monsaingeon has cleared the boards for musical excerpts too numerous to list (some of which have already appeared at full length). These excerpts span a period of 55 years, from 1932 to 1987 (1988, with Menuhin’s “performance” in Leopold Mozart’s Toy Symphony of the Berlin Philharmonic). Few violinists could boast even such a span of productive years, yet Menuhin’s performances as a child prodigy began quite a bit earlier, and he conducted well beyond the last excerpt. The musical snapshots from all these stages of his long career show him in various states of violinistic alertness, from early ones when the problems he would later experience had hardly begun to surface, to later ones in which he no longer possessed a serviceable technique but was able nonetheless to communicate the essence of the music he played stylishly enough almost to pass muster. The ability to communicate urgently in this way had been the hallmark of his years as a child prodigy: he accomplished as much with his intuition as he did with his fingers, to the amazement of the most discerning of critics. The documentary also traces the explorations he made of the music of other cultures, beginning at the beginning with Pablo de Sarasate, whose music, Menuhin has maintained, served as a prototypical attempt to enshrine folk inspiration in virtuosic violin technique, and with Johannes Brahms, who did the same in his Hungarian Dances (although Joseph Joachim had actually transcribed them for the violin). Then, too, there’s a segment in which he plays part of Black, Brown, and Beige with Duke Ellington, one in which he collaborates with Stéphane Grappelli in Jalousie, and another with Ravi Shankar in Raga Piloo. Whatever you may think of Menuhin as a violinist in these partnerships (and he’s hardly a match for Grappelli, at least), it’s impossible to deny his seminal influence and the atmosphere of tolerance he created for musical genres and styles that mainstream violinists had only tentatively explored (although Heifetz, of course, had played Gershwin and had even composed pop songs under a nom de plume). All these tidbits weave tantalizingly in and out of the biographical framework, but the program concludes with three full-blown performances from 1972 at the ORTF: Bloch’s Abodah and Ravel’s Kaddish with Yit-Kin Seow, and the Fuga from Bartók’s Sonata for Violin Solo, which Menuhin commissioned when the composer had come nearly to the end of his life and with which he therefore has a special and authoritative relationship.

During the last century, RCA Victor dubbed Heifetz “The Violinist of the Century”; apparently, Menuhin isn’t the same thing, but “The Violin of the Century.” The video demonstrates that he really was at least something like that. And of course, he did other important things that Monsaingeon didn’t relate and that would have strengthened his case, such as taking up Shostakovich’s big First Concerto very early (I remember a short-wave broadcast, probably around 1960). But I wouldn’t give up any of the suggestive performance excerpts to make space for them. And I’m just as happy to leave his skeletons in his closet. In fact, by not encumbering his story with psychologizing about whatever shortcomings Menuhin may have had (and Menuhin, hardly shy about them, discusses them with characteristic frankness), Monsaingeon has allowed the artist’s glowing personality to conquer doubts and suspicions. Strongly recommended—urgently so for Menuhin’s admirers.

FANFARE: Robert Maxham