Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999)

Irving Berlin:
Cheek To Cheek 3:46
Isn´t This A Lovely Day? 2:55
The Piccolino 3:13
Change Partners 3:30
Top Hat 3:58
I´ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm 3:28
Heat Wave 2:55
Jerome Kern:
The Way You Look Tonight 3:37
Pick Yourself Up 2:16
A Fine Romance 3:22
All The Things You Are 4:13
Why Do I Love You? 3:27
Cole Porter:
I Get A Kick Out Of You 4:04
Night And Day 4:06
Looking At You 3:22
Just One Of Those Things 3:22
Rodgers & Hart
My Funny Valentine 4:06
Thou Swell 3:02
The Lady Is A Tramp 4:24
Blue Room 2:18… (more)

A magnificent redcording, one of the many for which we can think the assiduous and tasteful Ward Marston. It is an oddity of performance history that Lekeu's Sonata never has gotten a place in the standard repertory, even with such an apostle as the great (but then young) Yehudi. By comparison, the oft-performed Franck Sonata sounds, well, every minute as long as it is -- perhaps longer, despithe the fine playing by the brother-&-sister act.The Chausson POEME gains an unintentional layer of mystery and wonder from the pre-modern sound. For those who care abiut such things, Enescu was a living bridge between Menuhin's generation and that miraculous fin-de-siecle cornucopia which produced both Chausson and Lekeu.… (more)

Yehudi Menuhin, the well-known classical violinist, collaborated with Curtis W. Davis to produce an 8-part television series for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on the history of music. This companion book reproduces the text of the television series, much expanded with detailed notes and many photographs of musical instruments, performers and musical art. The 8 sections correspond to the 8 television episodes:
1) "The Quiver of Life: tracing the origins of music from prehistoric times to the first great civilisations of Sumeria, Egypt, China, and classical Greece, including the first musical instruments. Also discusses the evolution of hearing, and the physics of harmonics."
2) "The Flowering of Harmony: the growth of music in Western culture, from early Christian plain chant to Renaissance polyphony. The influence of the Crusades and wars in Spain bring new musical influences from the East, and the notation of music evolves from the first approximate neumes to the present staff and note system. India perfects the art of the single decorated musical line."
3) "New Voices for Man: Monteverdi creates the opera, Corelli creates the sonata and concerto forms, the city of Venice becomes a great musical capital. Colonization of Africa and the New World begins. Violin-making reaches perfection in Cremona Italy. In France, Lully becomes master of music for Louis XIV, and Henry Purcell is the last in line of English renaissance masters, his influence replaced by the German Handel."
4) "The Age of the Composer: Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert establish music as an idiom, commonly understood throughout the Western world. They begin to produce towering masterpieces, which continue to dominate our present-day classical concerts. Bach establishes the tempered scale and perfects the art of counterpoint; Mozart speaks of human passion with a last gesture of elegant restraint; Beethoven announces the composer as the creator of his own personal idiom; Schubert addresses the inner man."
5) "The Age of the Individual: The industrial age brings with it the modern grand piano, and the huge symphony orchestra, the massive grand opera. Paganini, Chopin, and Liszt become the embodiment of the romantic solo virtuoso. The cities grow, popular and folk music become urbanized, the national anthem emerges. Verdi is the cultural hero of an emerging Italian nation, and Wagner cuts Western music loose from its moorings. Nationalism takes musical shape in Tschaikovsky and other composers, and in popular forms such as the flamenco. Brahms retains his sense of contact with folk roots, and the waltzes of Strauss sweep Europe."
6) "The Parting of the Ways: Immigrants, the willing from Europe and the unwilling from Africa, become the population of North America, where a new music begins to take shape. The songs of Stephen Foster, the rags of Scott Joplin, the marches of John Philip Sousa are part of an America coming of age. Edison's invention of the movies and the phonograph revolutionize the shaping of musical taste. In Europe, old conventions break up under the impact of the impressionism of Debussy, the splendors of Strauss and Mahler. Charles Ives foreshadows the inevitable, and Igor Stravinsky brings on the revolution in music with The Rite of Spring."
7) "The Known and the Unknown: The pace of life in the twentieth century accelerates, and music absorbs new elements with astonishing speed. Jazz breaks like a tidal wave and comes to the concert hall wtih George Gershwin. Arnold Schonberg formulates the twelve-tone system. Edgard Varese creates an abstract music independent of conventions. Aaron Copland forges an American music comparable to that of other nations. The era of the big band is concurrent with Hollywood and Stokowski, radio and Toscanini. The music of Bali is rediscovered. Alban Berg sums up and lets go of the past in his final work, the Violin Concerto."
8) "Sound or Unsound: Junk-heap or compost heap, that is the question: whether music has lost its way, or whether it may flower anew. John Cage questions the validity of music itself, Steve Reich treats it as process, Muzak makes it into subliminal filler. Technology transforms botht he making and mass marketing of music. Canadian pianist Glenn Gould argues that the recording has replaced the concert hall. Popular music is transformed from the sentimental ballads of Sinatra to the driving beat of Presley, the emotional intensity of the Beatles and the street roughness of the Rolling Stones. Young people begin to rediscover the music of the more distant past and of other cultures; and the role of the sentiment returns to both classical and popular music. Bela Bartok is the epitome of the uncompromising artists, one who nonetheless does not lose touch with his roots in the soil and the people."
Clearly Menuhin promotes his own point of view as a traditional classical music performer, in 1979, and the ideas in episode 8 may seem rather narrow and dated. However this is a very accessible and enjoyable introduction to music history for young and old. The video series was excellent, and may still be available from the CBC archives. Recommended.… (more)