THE MENUHINS

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 April 1938, Page 9

THE MENUHINS

ASTOUNDING FAMILY. About 40. years ago a boy was born to a Jewish family in Southern Russia. writes Patrick Murphy in the “Daily Mail.” At the age of six or seven he was taken away to live in Palestine, and from there, when almost a man, he went to America. While still very young he married a pretty golden-haired girl who came of an aristocratic Russian family. A child was eventually born to them. Like his mother, he had golden hair and fine features. He had her strength, her vitality, and consequent good temper. When the child was still in long clothes he was such a well-behaved mortal that, the young couple found their love of music was not cramped by the need for one of them to sit at home and look after the baby. They took him to concerts with them. After a. while, the child, who had been named Yehudi would sit up and give demonstrations of his enjoyment of the music. When Yehudi was two he demanded a violin. Father and mother both doted on him. so, despite shortness of funds, they bought him a violin of the sort that has strings rather like a hatrack: entirely incapable of producing sound. Yehudi was so hurt, so upset, that he threw it on the ground and jumped on it. His father told an old friend about it. The elderly gentleman was fond of the little family. So, on a day that is musically historical now, he bought. Yehudi a violin that could be played. Four oi’ five years later that goldenheaded little boy stood in the centre of the great San Francisco Philharmonic Orchestra as the solo violinist, while the young father and mother sat, holding each other’s hand, among the thousands in the audience, unable to believe either eyes or ears. Within a year or two the name Yehudi Menuhin was known all over the world. Here was no precocious child, but a real musical genius. Meantime two more little Goldenheaded infants had crept into the family circle. Both were girls, and both showed the same strong resemblance to their pretty Georgian mother. Mother looked after the two little, girls while father Menuhin gave up his every minute to the boy genius. He regulated his day so that no abnormal influence should warp the brilliant mind. He could have made hundreds of thousands of pounds with that boy, but he did not even attempt to do so.

TEACHER AMAZED. Before long he discovered that the gay, vital little Hepzibah, the elder of the two girls, was also musically talented in an astounding degree. One day Papa took the three children to a famous piano teacher in Paris. The little party arrived just at lunch time. Menuhin told the great teacher he had brought his children so that he could get some idea of the standard of their playing and he would like to make arrangements for their tuition. The Frenchman looked at tlie two toddling girls and the sturdy boy and thought that his senses were giving him trouble. “But I do not teach babies,” Monsieur. I have a luncheon appointment, and 1 would be grateful if you would escort your family elsewhere,” Menuhin told Hepzibah to climb up on the stool at the piano and do her piece. Unconcernedly the little girl piled a few cushions on to the stool and climbed aboard. Meanwhile the maitre was nearly beside himself with annoyance. Repeatedly he told M. Menuhin to take his brats and run away. Then the piano drowned the onesided conversation and the teacher stood with mouth slowly opening. The child was playing like a master. When she had finished Papa Menuhin lifted Yalta, the younger girl, on to the stool and told her to play. She. too, showed incredible fluency. Shu was five. Well, the famous teacher began to believe his senses and for the next seven or eight years travelled witli the Menuhins and taugh the girls their piano.

Two years ago the father decided that Yehudi ought to retire and rest and think while he developed from boyhood into manhood. Yehudi is now out of his retirement and is greater than evei’ before. He has given seven concerts in New York in the past few weeks and all have been sold out. He is playing at the Albert Hall. Every seat for that performance is sold. In two broadcasts in America he made more than £6OOO. He will earn well over £50,000 during this season, where his engagements are confined to America and 26 concerts in Europe. No wonder his retirement was spent on the lovely, remote Californian estate which his father bought for him so that he might escape from the bustling world. Underneath that property are enormous deposits of oil, but Papa Menuhin has made agreements with the other big property owners not to allow the oil to be worked for 100 years so that peace may not be disturbed.

Hepzibah is made of the same precious material as her gifted brother. She can match him in iicr talent, her strength, and her vigorous, decisive mind.

Yalta is a puzzle. She is perhaps the most brilliant of the three. She is a superb pianist, but I would not be surprised if she turned to some medium other than, music and made a name as great as her. brother or sister. She is full of surprises.

Father Menuhin can play the typewriter and mother can strum easy pieces! The most astounding family I know. Any one of them would be enough for a generation. But three in one family!