Yehudi Menuhin's recorded legacy...

[pastoralguy]

I'm sure, like many others, I was very excited when EMI/Warner announced their 'Menuhin 100' Anniversary Edition. Alas, I couldn't afford the whole set but I requested a couple of box sets last year for Christmas and have been dipping in and out this last year.

What I've found is that the vast majority of recordings Menuhin made post WWII are, frankly, really quite sub-standard and do not bear repeated listening. That was a very painful sentence to write since I bow to no one in my appreciation of the young Menuhin whose early recordings have an incandescence that ever Mr. Heifetz struggled to match.

However, on listening to the later discs there's no doubt that his playing is simply too unreliable to gain any pleasure from. I know all the stories about his mother squashing ANYONE from His teachers Persinger and Enescu who dared to criticise his genius, down and this led to a lack of a solid technical foundation. Furthermore, his constant playing during the war no doubt led to a deterioration of his technique.

I've also heard that Menuhin's visit to the immediate post war concentration camps affected him to his core and he was never the same man again. However, this doesn't alter the fact that, on listening to his live recordings, one is simply waiting for the next patch of poor intonation or rough tone as well as feeling an audience willing Menuhin to simply get through the piece.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this?

[verismissimo]

I think that one set that might escape your judgement, pastoral, is the DGG Beethoven sonatas with Kempff from 1970. I've had them for years with great enjoyment.

[pastoralguy]

I think that one set that might escape your judgement, pastoral, is the DGG Beethoven sonatas with Kempff from 1970. I've had them for years with great enjoyment.

Oh, absolutely. I have those discs and they are terrific which makes some of his other recordings made around the same period seem poor.

I was very fortunate to hear him live in 1978 when he played the Beethoven Concerto with Sir Alex Gibson and the SNO. It wasn't flawless by any means but it didn't really matter. However, hearing commercial recordings in the cold light of day is a completely different thing.

[Conchis]

I'm sure, like many others, I was very excited when EMI/Warner announced their 'Menuhin 100' Anniversary Edition. Alas, I couldn't afford the whole set but I requested a couple of box sets last year for Christmas and have been dipping in and out this last year.

What I've found is that the vast majority of recordings Menuhin made post WWII are, frankly, really quite sub-standard and do not bear repeated listening. That was a very painful sentence to write since I bow to no one in my appreciation of the young Menuhin whose early recordings have an incandescence that ever Mr. Heifetz struggled to match.

However, on listening to the later discs there's no doubt that his playing is simply too unreliable to gain any pleasure from. I know all the stories about his mother squashing ANYONE from His teachers Persinger and Enescu who dared to criticise his genius, down and this led to a lack of a solid technical foundation. Furthermore, his constant playing during the war no doubt led to a deterioration of his technique.

I've also heard that Menuhin's visit to the immediate post war concentration camps affected him to his core and he was never the same man again. However, this doesn't alter the fact that, on listening to his live recordings, one is simply waiting for the next patch of poor intonation or rough tone as well as feeling an audience willing Menuhin to simply get through the piece.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this?

I would tend to agree with you. Unlike you, I'm not a string player but I've never found anything that 'special' about Menuhin's stereo recordings.

I'm a bigger fan of his jazz collaborations with Grappelli and his sitar/violin collaboration with Ravi Shankar.

[Barbirollians]

I would tend to agree with you. Unlike you, I'm not a string player but I've never found anything that 'special' about Menuhin's stereo recordings.

I'm a bigger fan of his jazz collaborations with Grappelli and his sitar/violin collaboration with Ravi Shankar.

I don’t agree - there are lots of his post war recordings that are special. The Brahms with Kempe, the Mendelssohn/ Bruch coupling , the Elgar with Boult,a truly fine coupling of the Spring and Keutzer with Hepzibah, a coupling of Mozart 4 and 5 with John Pritchard that plumb depths beyond any other ....

[Lat-Literal]

I'm sure, like many others, I was very excited when EMI/Warner announced their 'Menuhin 100' Anniversary Edition. Alas, I couldn't afford the whole set but I requested a couple of box sets last year for Christmas and have been dipping in and out this last year.

What I've found is that the vast majority of recordings Menuhin made post WWII are, frankly, really quite sub-standard and do not bear repeated listening. That was a very painful sentence to write since I bow to no one in my appreciation of the young Menuhin whose early recordings have an incandescence that ever Mr. Heifetz struggled to match.

However, on listening to the later discs there's no doubt that his playing is simply too unreliable to gain any pleasure from. I know all the stories about his mother squashing ANYONE from His teachers Persinger and Enescu who dared to criticise his genius, down and this led to a lack of a solid technical foundation. Furthermore, his constant playing during the war no doubt led to a deterioration of his technique.

I've also heard that Menuhin's visit to the immediate post war concentration camps affected him to his core and he was never the same man again. However, this doesn't alter the fact that, on listening to his live recordings, one is simply waiting for the next patch of poor intonation or rough tone as well as feeling an audience willing Menuhin to simply get through the piece.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this?

My thought is that you have far more knowledge than me but I am almost wilful in my slighting of knowledge and logic here. Sorry. I think we all need giants. The most trustworthy giants largely pre-date overt commercialism even if that trust could be tested. I have found them in this decade as much as any other a gateway while also recalling my early years of when they would crop up on Desert Island Discs. And I have a leaning which is affectionate for them. My comments on the thread about the big names in opera elide. It's emotional!

[Barbirollians]

And I forgot the unparalleled Bloch concerto recording with Kletzki, the Lalo and Saint Saens with Goossens.

[Dave2002]

I think there are clear differences between live performances and studio recordings. I heard Menuhin twice - once briefly during a rehearsal, and one concert. At the concert the Mendelssohn concerto was a strain - for me hard to listen to. The Elgar, on the other hand, was sublime. Some problems can be rectified in studio recordings, and the players can also have more time to sort out slight problems. I did hear anecdotedly though from people connected with recording that later in life Menuhin was getting hard (not unpleasant) to work with as even in the studio he needed a lot of takes to get acceptable results.

[gurnemanz]

I have two concerto recordings Menuhin made in post-war Germany, significant not only musically as very good performances but historically as among the first recordings by a Jewish artist in Germany at that time:

The live Beethoven with Furtwängler and BPO from 1947 is on a recommendable Audite set of RIAS recordings.

Also the Tchaikovsky with Ferenc Fricsay and the Berlin RIAS Orchestra from 1949. He seems not to have played this concerto much after this date despite having first played it aged 8. It's also on YouTube.