35 Facts About Yehudi Menuhin

1.

Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, was an American-born violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain.

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2.

Yehudi Menuhin is widely considered one of the great violinists of the 20th century.

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3.

Yehudi Menuhin played the Soil Stradivarius, considered one of the finest violins made by Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari.

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4.

Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City to a family of Lithuanian Jews.

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5.

Yehudi Menuhin's sisters were concert pianist and human rights activist Hephzibah, and pianist, painter and poet Yaltah.

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6.

Two years later, when he was seven years old, Yehudi Menuhin appeared as solo violinist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1923.

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7.

The week before, Yehudi Menuhin had played in Berlin with the Philharmonic under Bruno Walter to an equally rapturous response.

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8.

Yehudi Menuhin did have one lesson with Ysaye, but he disliked Ysaye's teaching method and his advanced age.

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9.

Yehudi Menuhin was a student of Adolf Busch in Basel.

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10.

Yehudi Menuhin stayed in the Swiss city for a bit more than a year, where he started to take lessons in German and Italian as well.

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11.

Yehudi Menuhin returned to Germany in 1947 to play concerto concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwangler as an act of reconciliation, the first Jewish musician to do so in the wake of the Holocaust, saying to Jewish critics that he wanted to rehabilitate Germany's music and spirit.

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12.

Yehudi Menuhin credited German philosopher Constantin Brunner with providing him with "a theoretical framework within which I could fit the events and experiences of life".

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13.

Yehudi Menuhin made Lysy his only personal student, and the two toured extensively throughout the concert halls of Europe.

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14.

Yehudi Menuhin made several recordings with the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, who had been criticized for conducting in Germany during the Nazi era.

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15.

Yehudi Menuhin defended Furtwangler, noting that the conductor had helped a number of Jewish musicians to flee Nazi Germany.

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16.

Yehudi Menuhin established the music program at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, California, sometime around then.

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17.

Yehudi Menuhin performed the concerto many times and recorded it at its premiere at the Bath Festival in 1965.

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18.

Yehudi Menuhin had a long association and deep friendship with Ravi Shankar, beginning in 1952, leading to their joint performance in 1966 at the Bath Festival and the recording of their Grammy Award-winning album West Meets East .

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19.

Yehudi Menuhin worked with famous jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli in the 1970s on Jalousie, an album of 1930s classics led by duetting violins backed by the Alan Claire Trio.

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20.

At the Edinburgh Festival Yehudi Menuhin premiered Priaulx Rainier's violin concerto Due Canti e Finale, which he had commissioned Rainier to write.

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21.

Yehudi Menuhin commissioned her last work, Wildlife Celebration, which he performed in aid of Gerald Durrell's Wildlife Conservation Trust.

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22.

Yehudi Menuhin wrote some, while others were edited by different authors.

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23.

In 1991, Yehudi Menuhin was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize by the Israeli Government.

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24.

Yehudi Menuhin regularly returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, sometimes performing with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

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25.

Yehudi Menuhin hosted the PBS telecast of the gala opening concert of the San Francisco Symphony from Davies Symphony Hall in September 1980.

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26.

Yehudi Menuhin's recording contract with EMI lasted almost 70 years and is the longest in the history of the music industry.

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27.

Yehudi Menuhin made his first recording at age 13 in November 1929, and his last in 1999, when he was nearly 83 years old.

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28.

Yehudi Menuhin recorded over 300 works for EMI, both as a violinist and as a conductor.

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29.

In 1990 Yehudi Menuhin was the first conductor for the Asian Youth Orchestra which toured around Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong with Julian Lloyd Webber and a group of young talented musicians from all over Asia.

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30.

Yehudi Menuhin was married twice, first to Nola Nicholas, daughter of an Australian industrialist and sister of Hephzibah Yehudi Menuhin's first husband Lindsay Nicholas.

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31.

Yehudi Menuhin became an honorary citizen of Switzerland, and then of the United Kingdom, in 1970 and 1985, respectively.

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32.

Yehudi Menuhin died in Martin Luther Hospital in Berlin, Germany, from complications of bronchitis.

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33.

Yehudi Menuhin arranged for Iyengar to teach abroad in London, Switzerland, Paris, and elsewhere.

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34.

Yehudi Menuhin became one of the first prominent yoga masters teaching in the West.

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35.

Yehudi Menuhin played a number of famous violins, arguably the most renowned of which is the Lord Wilton Guarnerius 1742.

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