YEHUDI MENUHIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22628, 20 July 1935, Page 11

YEHUDI MENUHIN

BOX PLAN OPENS MONDAY Among international celebrities of the time, Yehudi Menuhin has created the profoundcst impression on New Zealand audiences in the north where lie lias already appeared—in fact, each concert has been a veritable triumph for the young artist. .With the approach of the Dunedin concert, which is to be held in the Town Hall on July 27, greater interest, perhaps, is being displayed in the visjt of Menuhin than in that of any other artist who has visited New Zealand. The preferential bookings, which have, already been received, are the heaviest in the experience of the box office. The general plan will open on Monday morning. It is no exaggeration to say that never before has a visiting musical celebrity captured the imagination of Australian and New Zealand musie-lovers as has Yehudi Menuhin. The case has been the same everywhere — crowded houses have greeted his every appearance, while critics have reported his performances in superlatives. His accompanist, M. Marcel Gazelle, too, has made a profound impression. He is more than an accompanist —he is an associate, and as snob shares with Menuhin in the applause that always follows their performances. Menuhin’s art is such that he has become the friend of men older than himself, who admit that they cherish friendship with the young genius because he is a flame at which they gain warmth and stimulus. The late Sir Edward Elgar was a great personal friend of Menuhin’s; and Toscanini, the famous conductor, is in the habit, when both are in New York, of foregathering —a meeting which usually means poring over Bach or some other' composer and gaining some new insight into compositions because of their collaborations. The Royal Albert Hall, London, which seats 10,000, has been filled to capacity on each occasion that Menuhin has played there, and on his tenth recital in October last, Mr Ernest Newman, the leading critic of London, writing for the Sunday Times, said, “ It is easy to write the simple and final word * perfection | against the performance of Yehudi Menuhin, which held a packed, Albert Hall audience spellbound —as easy, as he seemed to find his' own achievement. How are these things possible? Is he heir to some great spirit of the past? Even in the' ecstacy of enjoyment, the listening musician, realising what such skill involves, must ask himself these questions.” Yehudi Menuhin comes as a sort of climax to the Tait direction of such famous personages as Paderewski, Galli Curci, Pavlova, Kreisler, Heifetz, Hislop, Moiseivitch, Hambourg and Kubelik. Mr Claude Kingston, who ia personally directing the tour for Messrs J. and N. Tait, claims that Menuhin’s violin brings audiences to their feet, and that his technique is a revelation of consummate artistry. To find eo young an artist playing the prodigious programmes of veteran violinists with, aplomb and assurance is to see Yehudi Menuhin in complete harmony with hia beautiful instrument and hia efficient accompanist. Menuhin ia accompanied on his New Zealand tour by his parents and his sisters, one of whom, Hephzibah, ia a brilliant pianist, and has been associated with her brother on some of the best-known conceit platforms in the world. The plan is at the D.I.C,