Beethoven Violin Concerto - Menuhin

[Barbirollians]

Worried to find nearly a year has passed since I first listened to this - but it retains its power . A real one-off record slow but mesmerising . The slowish tempo for the Rondo makes one hear all manner of details so often missed .

[pastoralguy]

Worried to find nearly a year has passed since I first listened to this - but it retains its power . A real one-off record slow but mesmerising . The slowish tempo for the Rondo makes one hear all manner of details so often missed .

I'll pull it out and listen too, Barbie. Long time since I've heard the Beethoven with the late, great Menuhin.

[amateur51]

Re Menuhin's recording with Masur referred to in the OP - I thought it rang a bell. I bought the recording when it came out on an EMI LP :-



I remember particularly liking the cover - one of the advantages of LP's. Must give it a spin as I haven't listened to it in years.

Cover looks more like Paul Lewis than Beethoven to me

[gurnemanz]

My understanding of Menuhin's problems is that it started in his youth. His mother attended all his lessons with his first real teacher, Louis Persinger. She would not allow the young Yehudi to be criticised in any way by his teacher and, on one occasion, insisted that Persinger apologised to the boy after he corrected something. This led Menuhin to neglect scales, studies and student concertos that are the staple of ALL fiddle players from Mr. Heifetz down.

During WW2, Menuhin did a tremendous amount of playing without maintaining his technique. However, I believe that his visits to the concentration camps after the end of the war had an appalling effect on him and I believe he had a complete crisis of, well, everything. People who knew his playing said he was never the same again.

Imho, the young Menuhin was the greatest human ever to put horse tail to cow gut. A true genius.

His son Jeremy's comments about him make hard reading:
"The emotional life of our family was grotesque," says Menuhin, 43. "We barely saw our parents, and when we did, the atmosphere was dour and artificial. We crept round, and weren't allowed to go down to dinner if there were guests. Emotions were discouraged, as was dissent of any sort... When I think of all the middle-men, the concert promoters, managers and journalists who were more important to my parents than us, it makes me angry,"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/3637593/I-only-felt-loved-when-I-played-well.html

[Barbirollians]

His son Jeremy's comments about him make hard reading:
"The emotional life of our family was grotesque," says Menuhin, 43. "We barely saw our parents, and when we did, the atmosphere was dour and artificial. We crept round, and weren't allowed to go down to dinner if there were guests. Emotions were discouraged, as was dissent of any sort... When I think of all the middle-men, the concert promoters, managers and journalists who were more important to my parents than us, it makes me angry,"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/m...ayed-well.html

The difficult thing about pieces like that is they are so often one side of the story and being published after his parents' deaths they cannot answer back .

In any event , how does this affect one's appreciation of music making ?

[gurnemanz]

The difficult thing about pieces like that is they are so often one side of the story and being published after his parents' deaths they cannot answer back .

In any event , how does this affect one's appreciation of music making ?

It doesn't.