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?
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?
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