His performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto at Carnegie Hall in 1927 made him an international celebrity, proving in the bargain that not even the crustiest old pros were immune to his musical charm. When New York Philharmonic conductor Fritz Busch first heard that his featured soloist was 11 years old, he muttered, “One doesn’t hire Jackie Coogan [the child movie star] to play Hamlet.” But when Busch heard Menuhin play, he told him, “My dear child, you can play anything with me, any time, anywhere.” The orchestra members were an even tougher sell, Menuhin recalled, and they grew even chillier when the small boy handed his violin to Busch to be tuned. But again, his music made instant converts. “By the end of the first movement,” he said, “I knew they were on my side.”
Young Menuhin was hailed by critics for his astonishing technical facility. But his ability to play with the emotional resources of one much older made him a legend. In 1929, a few days shy of his 13th birthday, Menuhin made his Berlin debut. After that performance he was followed backstage by Albert Einstein, who hugged him and said, “Now I know there is a God in heaven.”
It was surely this blend of maturity and spirituality that sustained him as a performer and gave him a productive life past prodigyhood. His technical prowess did wane over the years. But no one ever said that Menuhin’s heart was shrinking. At his death he was equally well known for his schools for gifted young musicians–violinist Nigel Kennedy is an alumnus–and for his humanitarian efforts, such as Live Music Now! an international organization that sends performers to musically deprived audiences in prisons, hospices and remote rural areas. In World War II alone, he performed more than 500 concerts for American and Allied troops. He was the first performer to play the Paris Opera after the liberation and the first to perform for the newly freed con- centration-camp inmates at Bergen-Belsen in Germany.
He was also the first Jewish musician to take the stage with the Berlin Philharmonic after the war. His appearance, in 1947, on the same stage with conductor Wilhelm Furtwngler, who had conducted the orchestra throughout Hitler’s tenure, was bitterly denounced by the Jewish community. In his autobiography, “Unfinished Journey,” Menuhin succinctly defended himself: “I much wanted to go, as a Jew who might keep alive German guilt and repentance, and as a musician offering something to live for.”
Menuhin’s idealism drew headlines, as when he insisted on playing charity concerts in the Arab world after the Six Day War. But it is for his very long shelf of recordings that he will be remembered (box). Says fellow violinist Isaac Stern, “His style of playing, particularly in his early years, was a stunning patrician elegance with a very natural musical line which fitted the style of whatever composition.” Loosely translated: he could play anything, and had friendships and collaborations with players as diverse as sitarist Ravi Shankar and jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli.
Menuhin, who received an honorary British knighthood in 1965, always downplayed his musical gift. “All children have some gifts,” he said in 1996. “But very few children have the good fortune to have the right background, the parents, the teachers, the opportunity, the encouragement, the love I had.” Still, none of that adequately explains his great gift. All we know is that the more he denied that he was extraordinary, the more extraordinary he seemed.
Musical Milestones
