A New Menuhin Biography
 

Arguably the most famous classical musician of the twentieth century, Yehudi Menuhin has thus far been the subject of just two books that qualify as biographies.  A third, to be published in two parts, has been ten years in the making. The first 300-page volume, tracing the Menuhin odyssey from anti-Semitic pogroms of late nineteenth-century Russia to 1947 on the eve of Yehudi's second marriage,  is now available.  Book Two, due for publication in late 2009, brings the saga to its conclusion with Yehudi's death in Berlin in 1999.   

Written by Philip Bailey, who worked on the Menuhin staff in London from 1976 until 1999, Book One of Yehudiana, Reliving the Menuhin Odyssey features:

■ accounts of the early lives of Yehudi's formidable parents and their three musically-gifted children interwoven with those of Yehudi's first wife, Australian-born Nola Nicholas, and of dancer Diana Gould;

■ research into the world of 1930s ballet that has shed new light on Diana's writings on the subject;

■ insights gleaned from previously unpublished letters;

■ 184 illustrations, including newly-discovered photos;

■ an easy-to-use bibliography and detailed index facilitating use of the book as a reference tool;

■ a foreword by Robert Masters, founder and leader of The Menuhin Festival Orchestra;

■ new material providing expanded accounts of Yehudi's remarkable career as a youth, his first world tour - including the 1935 landmark visit to Australia - his contribution to troop and public morale during World War II, and the disintegration of his marriage to Nola.