YM: I think so, yes. And
it doesn’t even have to be great; if it’s
really good you can distinguish it. The excellent Polish piece we’re
playing on this tour of Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) [Concerto for
Strings (1948)] is the first big piece on the program. She
died,
unfortunately, a few years ago; I met her sister in Warsaw. But it’s
a thoroughly excellent piece, wonderfully put together; it shows the
string orchestra off brilliantly and brings the soloists out in an
interesting way simply from its texture and structure. We
touch it up every few days, and at the next opportunity I’m
intending to take a symphony which I’ve never
heard more beautifully played — the Mozart G minor, which I think is quite
extraordinary the way they play it — and take it
apart and put it together again. It’s
very interesting because first of all, one discovers more and more as
one plays; secondly, little things creep in, so it’s like
dusting a room every day. It’s partly a bit
of housekeeping.
BD: Is Mozart himself the
pinnacle of music?
YM: I’ve
recorded Abduction a long
time ago. I did it in English and with good singers. We had
done it in English; that was one of my first operas. I
had the naïve idea and I persuaded EMI that, as there were no
recordings in English, that probably everyone in the United States,
Australia, Canada, England and South Africa would want to hear the
opera in English. [Both chuckle] Well, the funny thing is
it did not sell to any extent at all, and as they have a policy that
anything that falls short of a certain scale is taken off the market,
that was taken off the market. 
YM: In a way; in a way. The
people I meet are responsible people; they’re
warm and their gratitude must denote some form of
reaction, and it seems to be a positive reaction. They may,
someday, but they haven’t yet thrown anything at
me. [Both chuckle] In the affection and the feeling of
warmth in the way they come backstage, you can tell if people have been
really moved. I think it’s therapeutic in
many ways. Not all music is therapeutic, though; some music today
is just the opposite. But think of the great Passions of Bach that really wring
the human heart, that take it through every conceivable state of being
— all the way from bliss and meditation, to terror, compunction,
a sense of guilt, to gratitude, to reverence. There’s
an American — I think he’s working in
Australia now... I wish I could remember his name — who has
evolved a sort of emotional cycle which begins, I think,
with love and ends with love, but it goes through all of the emotions in
a form of a sequence. He has also analyzed the music and
cataloged it in these terms. And he has evolved a kind of
monitor, a yardstick, so that the response of the person listening can
be analyzed. It goes a bit far in terms of a deliberate,
methodological kind of approach, but he’s found
that when he puts people through his whole cycle, which is what a great
work of music does, they are, as it were, purged of their negative
emotions; they’ve spent them. They’ve
been through them and they are far more balanced and relaxed
afterwards. He puts them through synthetically. I knew more
about it and I’ve forgotten the details; it’s
some years ago, now, but it’s very
interesting. In other words, the need for people to set fire to
stadiums or houses or throw bombs like terrorists, they want to get
their own back on society, or they’re
frustrated. Music is the first and most basic therapy of all
civilizations. By dancing it away or by acting it away or by
putting themselves through the great story — whether it is
the story of Jesus and the crucifixion in the New Testament, or whether
it is some other story which they’ve evolved in
Africa — they literally become more reliable and better
citizens. They are more balanced people because they
are getting rid of emotional toxins.
YM: And taken to its
extreme. That’s the civilization we live
in, and yet the astronauts will go to the Moon and write mystical
accounts of what the Earth looks like. When the advertisers want
us to smoke more, they will show it in the light of touching innocent
youthful romance next to unpolluted waters. You see? We
haven’t lost that ability. And as far as
being pagan is concerned, we have never stopped being pagan. We
have adopted the monotheistic, which is the symbolic unity and the one
God. But the fact is that we have never abandoned the many gods;
nor can we, nor should we! I think it’s
part of what we have to have. The Old Testament is a transition
from the pagan to the monotheistic, which is one that occurred over a
huge part of the world to millions of people. I just conducted Betulia liberata of Mozart.
It’s a big oratorio which he wrote when he was
15. It’s the story of Judith slaying
Holofernes, this tyrant of the pagan horde which is putting Betulia
under siege. The residents are reduced to famine and there is
nothing to eat. The Jewish king of Betulia is implored; his
residents implore him to surrender, but he feels it’s
better, in the end, to die. At this moment the prince of the
pagans has been pushed aside and deposed by the tyrant. The
prince is an accepted traditional figure; you have a prince, and he’s
devoted to you. But a tyrant is a totally different thing.
It’s Amin; it’s
Bokassa. No self-respecting civilization ever lived
without a prince or a king. So the prince comes. He has
left the tyrant and offers himself. He says, "I have long
respected the Jews for your belief in the One God. I think it’s
quite extraordinary when I see how he has interceded on your behalf so
often." The whole oratorio is a story of the transition from the
pagan to the monotheistic. But the Jewish King says it’s
not enough to adore him. You must abandon your faith and you must
really put all your trust in Him. And then, there’s
this most wonderful line in the whole the oratorio. He says, "I
love my pagan gods. I can handle them, I can talk to them, I can
see them! And you want me to leave all of this for a god I can’t
even touch?" Then the story goes on. Judith is dressed in
the most wonderful, resplendent clothes from the Jewish camp, and says,
"I’m going alone." She goes alone to their
enemies, seduces Holofernes, and comes back with his head. And of
course that’s the triumph of the Jewish
God. I did it in Vienna without
cuts, and it was beautifully done. All the recitative were
wonderful. I tell you this story to illustrate that
we live in a civilization that doesn’t
recognize abstractions, that wants to see and touch everything — a
motorcar, the Moon, sex, whatever it may be we want to see and
touch. We forget that these are only indications; the senses are
only guides to a state of being, and we have to interpret. We’re
not human unless we interpret.|
Yehudi Menuhin
Born: April 22, 1916 - New York, USA Died: March 12, 1999 - Berlin, Germany  The American violinist and conductor, Yehudi Menuhin, had
one of the longest and most distinguished careers of any violinist of
the 20th century. Menuhin was born in New York of Russian-Jewish
parents, recent immigrants to America. By the age of seven his
performance of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto had found him instant
fame. As a teenager he toured throughout the world and was considered
one of the greats long before his twentieth birthday. Even in his
earliest recordings one can sense deeply passionate responses to the
great composers. Though considered a technical master, it is his highly
charged emotional playing that set him apart.As a young man Yehudi Menuhin went to Paris to study under violinist and composer George Enesco. Enesco was a primary influence on Menuhin and the two remained friends and collaborators throughout their lives. During the thirties, Menuhin was a sought after international performer. Over the course of World War II he played five hundred concerts for Allied troops, and later returned to Germany to play for inmates recently liberated from the concentration camps. This visit to Germany had a profound effect on Menuhin. As a Jew and a classical musician, Yehudi Menuhin had a complex relationship with German culture. He was fluent in German and deeply influenced by classical German composers. Menuhin found in the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler an important musical peer. Despite accusations of Wilhelm Furtwängler's pro-Nazi sympathies, Menuhin continued to support him and his work. It seemed that for many years, Menuhin led a double life. He was an outspoken supporter of dozens of causes for social justice, while also longing for a solitary life where he could ignore the concerns of society and attend only to the history of music and his role within it. Throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s, Yehudi Menuhin performed and made recordings from the great works of the classical canon. During this time he also began to include rarely performed and lesser known works. One of his greatest achievements is the commissioning and performing of Sonata for Solo Violin by Béla Bartók. In Béla Bartók, Menuhin found a composer of deep emotion and pathos that mimicked his own. Béla Bartók's work was at once technically rigorous and open to interpretive playing. Of Menuhin, Béla Bartók said he played better than he imagined he would ever hear his work played. Their collaboration is considered one of the greats of twentieth-century classical music. By the 1960’s, Yehudi Menuhin began to increase the scope of his musical involvement. In 1963 he opened the Yehudi Menuhin School, a school for musically gifted children. He also began conducting, which he would continue to do until his death. He conducted in many of the important music festivals and nearly every major orchestra in the world. It was around this time he also broke from his traditional roots and did work outside of the classical genre. One of his most successful ventures out of traditional performance was with the great Indian composer and sitarist Ravi Shankar.  Throughout the last twenty years of his life, Yehudi Menuhin continued to engage in every aspect of musical work. As a performer, a conductor, a teacher, and a spokesperson, he spent his seventies and eighties as one of the most active musicians in the world. He was a constant contributor to religious, social, and environmental organizations throughout the world. Among his many books were: ‘Violin: Six Lessons’ (1972); an autobiography ‘Unfinished Journey; (1977); with Curtis W. Davis ‘The Music of Man’ (1980), based on the television series of the same title, and ‘Life Class’ (1986) |
This interview was recorded in Chicago on January 31,
1987. Portions (along with recordings) were
broadcast on WNIB later that year and again in 1990, 1991 and
1996. A copy of the unedited audio tape was placed in the Archive
of Contemporary Music at Northwestern University. The
transcription was made early in 2009 and posted on this
website soon thereafter.
To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here.
Award-winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001. His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.
You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago. You may also send him E-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.