Yehudiana - Reliving the Menuhin Odyssey, Book One:
Foreword
Introduction
Overture
Chapter 1 Out of the Ghetto
1893 - Birth of Moshe Mnuchin (Gomel, Russia)
1896 - Birth of Marutha Sher (Crimea)
1897 - Death of Moshe's father
1908 - Death of Moshe's grandfather
1909 - Moshe attempts to emigrate to America
Chapter 2 Marrying for Love
1910 - Moshe meets Marutha in Jerusalem
1913 - Moshe arrives in New York
1914 - Moshe marries Marutha (New York, 7 August)
1916 - Birth of Yehudi (New York, 22 April)
1918 - Menuhin family moves to San Francisco
1919 - Moshe takes US citizenship and changes surname
1920 - Hephzibah born (20 May)
1921 - Yaltah born (7 October)
Chapter 3 The Infant Phenomenon
1921 - Yehudi begins violin lessons (31 May)
- Yehudi's first public performance (26 November)
1922 - Yehudi's first performance for radio
1923 - Yehudi begins lessons with Persinger
1925 - Yehudi's professional début (30 March)
1926 - New York recital début (17 January)
- Début with orchestra (12 March)
- Farewell concert, San Francisco (16 November)
Chapter 4 Parallel Paths via Paris
1912 - Birth of Diana Gould (12 November)
1926 - Menuhin family in Europe
1927 - Yehudi's Paris début (7 February)
- Lessons begin with Enesco
Chapter 5 Jackie Coogan Plays Hamlet
1927 - Yehudi's New York orchestral début (24 Nov)
- Carnegie Hall recital début (12 December)
1928 - First recordings, San Francisco (15 March)
- Hephzibah's recital début, aged 8 years 5 months
Chapter 6 Ballooning over America
1928 - Yehudi begins first US tour (16 December)
1929 - Yehudi receives gift of Stradivari violin
- Menuhin family returns to Europe
Chapter 7 Surrender in Berlin and London
1929 - Yehudi's Berlin orchestral début (12 April)
- Yehudi's Bar Mitzvah (22 April)
- Berlin recital début (23 April)
- Lessons begin with Adolf Busch (Basel)
- Yehudi's first European concert tour
- Death of Diaghilev and impact on Diana (August)
- London concert début (4 November)
- London recital début (10 November)
Chapter 8 A French Idyll in the Gathering Storm
1930 - Second US tour begins (January)
- Family returns to Paris and Basel (May)
- Second European tour (September)
1931 - US winter tour
- Return to Paris and to lessons with Enesco
- Third European tour
- Yehudi makes first concerto recording (November)
1932 - US winter tour (14 cities) with Artur Balsam
Chapter 9 Dancing to the Wrong Tune
1932 - Yehudi begins collaboration with Toscanini
- Enesco and Yehudi win Candide Prize
- Elgar's Violin Concerto recorded (14 July)
- Diana's involvement in development of British ballet at the Ballet Club with Marie Rambert
- Diana joins production of The Miracle
Chapter 10 Waiting for a German Miracle
1932 - Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in triumphant Paris début season
- Diana returns to Paris for lessons with Egorova
- Yehudi attends Salzburg Mozart Festival
- Yehudi makes last pre-war appearance in Berlin and plays three-concerto programme in London with Beecham and Elgar conducting.
- Music critic refers to Yehudi's lack of bow control
- Yehudi makes début in Milan
- Fascist thugs assault Toscanini
- Toscanini invites Yehudi to perform with him
1933 - Moshe hospitalized for surgery
- Menuhin family responds to political situation in Germany
- Nazi persecution of Yehudi's concert agent
- Menuhins refuse Furtwängler's offer of concerts
Chapter 11 Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
1933 - Yehudi's début in Opera House, San Francisco
- Menuhin family returns to Paris
- Hephzibah and Yehudi make first joint recording
- Yehudi's final pre-war tour of Europe
- Diana joins Les Ballets 1933 Company
Chapter 12 Growing Pains
1934 - Judson creates monopoly of US concert agencies
- Yehudi plays Beethoven VC with Toscanini (Jan)
- Family returns to Paris (May)
- Yehudi and Hephzibah make recital début (Oct)
1935 - Diana joins De Basil's Company and (later) the Markova - Dolin Company
Chapter 13 Debuts Down Under
1934 - World tour begins (October)
1935 - Yehudi speaks out against Hitler and Stalin
- Plans prepared for new Menuhin home
- Family arrives in Australia (April)
- Nola Nicholas becomes Menuhin fan
- Critics complain about tour programming
- New Zealand visit (June)
Chapter 14 Paradise, Lost and Found
1935 - World Tour ends in Europe (November)
- Yehudi in Paris recording marathon
1936 - Menuhin family leaves Europe for California
- Villa Cherkess site for new home abandoned
- Yehudi faces technical difficulties on the violin
- Ferguson Webster appointed accompanist
1937 - Yehudi turns twenty-one unheralded (22 April)
- Yehudi joins race to give world première of Schumann's embargoed Violin Concerto
- Winter US tour begins (October)
Chapter 15 Three Weddings and a Phoney War
1938 - Concert tour of UK (February)
- Nola and Lindsay Nicholas meet Menuhin family at
Royal Albert Hall, London (21 March)
- Yehudi and Nola married (London, 26 May)
- Yaltah makes a one-off recording with Yehudi
Chapter 16 Nola in the Garden of Eden
1938 - Menuhin family sails from UK to New York (June)
- Yaltah marries William Stix in New York (7 June)
- Yehudi and Nola begin married life domiciled with
Yehudi's parents at Rancho Yaltah, Los Gatos
- Hephzibah marries Lindsay Nicholas (16 July)
- Jewish press critical of Menuhin siblings marrying non-Jews and for holding Hephzibah's wedding on a Saturday
- Yehudi takes Nola on belated honeymoon
- Hephzibah and Lindsay sail for Australia (September)
- Nola accompanies Yehudi and Moshe on five-month concert tour of America and Europe
Chapter 17 Battle Fronts
1938 - Yehudi resists pressure to join a union
- Moshe admits to Yehudi's birth-date deception
- Yaltah's first marriage ends
- Nola announces first pregnancy
1939 - Diana begins ballet classes with Lydia Sokolova
- De Basil's company faces uncertain future
- Diana makes last pre-war visit to Europe
- World War 11 declared (3 September)
- Zamira Menuhin born (29 September)
- Yehudi begins shortened winter US tour
1940 - Yehudi starts unscheduled sabbatical
- Nola, Yehudi, and entourage sail for Australia
- Krov Menuhin born (Melbourne, 17 August)
1941 - Yehudi begins first tour of South America (May)
- Yaltah elopes with Benjamin Rolfe
Chapter 18 The Brotherhood of War
1940 - Diana witness to evacuation of troops from Dunkirk (May)
- London Blitz begins (September)
1941 - Queen's Hall destroyed in air raid (May)
- Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour (December)
- Yehudi begins exploration of music of Béla Bart?k
- Yehudi and Adolf Baller give first troop recital
1942 - Yehudi begins marathon tours playing for the public, for war charities, and for troops
- Fall of Singapore (February)
- Nola and Yehudi move to "Alma" residence
- Nola suffers miscarriage
- Yehudi fails in first effort to reach wartime London
Chapter 19 The Wages of Immortality
1941 - Diana joins opera/ballet company
1942 - Diana assumes directorship of New Russian Ballet
- Diana in production of What Every Woman Knows
1943 - Yehudi arrives by bomber for six-week UK tour
- Yehudi decorated with Croix de Lorraine
- Diana joins ENSA for tour of Egypt and Italy
Chapter 20 Trouping the Pacific Theatre
1943 - Yehudi begins second tour of South America
- Yehudi‘s first public performance of work by Bartk (November)
- Yehudi and Baller play Bartk's First Sonata for the composer in private run-through
- Yehudi commissions solo work from Bartk
1944 - Nola works as nursing aide and suffers second miscarriage
- Yehudi and Baller give 64 recitals in the Aleutians
- Fatigue affects Yehudi's performances (February)
- Bartk delivers Solo Sonata manuscript
- Yehudi and Baller give troop recitals in Hawaii
Chapter 21 Coup de pouffe
1944 - Paris liberated (August)
- Liberation of Brussels and Antwerp (September)
- Yehudi returns to Britain for tour of naval establishments, military hospitals, and factories
- Yehudi meets Diana (September)
- Allied advance in Europe stalled at Arnhem
- Yehudi plays recitals in Brussels and Antwerp
- "Return" concert in Paris (October)
- Moshe senses discord in Yehudi's marriage
- Yehudi gives première of Bart?k's Solo Sonata
Chapter 22 The Validity of Impulse
1944 - Diana rejoins cast of The Merry Widow for end of London season and for tour to Europe (Dec)
1945 - Yehudi and Nola face marriage crisis (January)
- Yehudi plays in concert commemorating the founding of the United Nations (April)
- VE Day celebrated in London (8 May)
- Yehudi returns to London (June): records film soundtrack and plans visit to German death camps
Chapter 23 Bergen-Belsen, Hell on Earth
1945 - Yehudi asks British Army of Occupation for permission to play for Jewish and German survivors of Nazi tyrrany
- Benjamin Britten replaces Gerald Moore as Yehudi's accompanist for the tour of Germany
- Yehudi and Britten give recital (27 July) in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
- Yehudi performs Mendelssohn VC in NDR broadcast from Hamburg
- Mixed response of Displaced Persons to Yehudi's gestures of sympathy
Chapter 24 To Russia With Love
1945 - Nola and Yehudi face issue of divorce
- Diana's sister treated for TB
- Yehudi returns to London for concerts (October)
- Epstein's bust of Yehudi unveiled
- Yehudi plays charity concerts in Prague (November)
- Yehudi invites himself to Russia (November)
- Rapturous reception for Yehudi in Moscow
- Yehudi inspired by visit to Moscow's Central School of Music
- David Oistrakh joins Yehudi in performance
- Yehudi's affair with Diana deepens
Chapter 25 A Dual Life
1945 - Yehudi defends Furtwängler against accusations of collaboration with the Nazi regime
- Diana's stepfather knighted (December)
1946 - Critics assess the state of Yehudi's post-war performance
- Recognition from Music War Council of Yehudi's contribution to the Pacific War effort
- Nola brings her children to join Yehudi in London before engagements and holiday in Europe (April)
- Yehudi and Nola in reunion with Enesco in Romania
- Family summer holiday in Switzerland
- Louis Kentner and Griselda married in Zurich (May)
- Yehudi meets Richard Hauser (later to marry Hephzibah)
- Antal Doráti and Yehudi give début recital at Salzburg Festival
- Yehudi enjoys airborne adventures across Europe
- Diana attempts revival of career in New York
Chapter 26 Outflanking Nola
1946 - Diana arrives in California (December)
- Hephzibah meets Paul Morawetz en route from Australia to California
- Diana meets reunited Menuhin family at Christmas and joins entourage for West Coast concert tour
1947 - Yehudi includes Diana in family holiday in Florida
- Hephzibah and Yehudi in "return" NY recital (March)
- Nola agrees to final separation from Yehudi
- Menuhins arrive in London for recitals
- Willa Cather dies (April)
- Diana joins Yehudi for European concert tour
- Menuhins participate in Prague Spring Festival
- Hephzibah visits Theresienstadt camp
- Nola starts pre-divorce residency in Reno
- Zamira and Krov begin European summer holiday with Diana and Yehudi
- Yehudi breaks holiday to visit Casals in Prades
- Yehudi plays under Furtwängler at Salzburg and Lucerne Festivals
- Yehudi commissions sonata from William Walton
- Divorce and property settlement filed in Reno
Chapter 27 Carrying the Healing Message
1947 - Yehudi and Diana visit Berlin for concerts with Furtwängler (September)
- Displaced Persons express dismay over concert scheduling; Yehudi and Diana appease camp inmates
- Marcel Gazelle and Yehudi reunited for recitals in Scandinavia
- Yehudi proposes to Diana in Copenhagen; couple returns to London to prepare for wedding
- Nola marries Anthony Williams (October)
The index to Book One is also available as an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file ready for downloading to your PC, please click the PDF icon below to open or download. If you wish to print a copy of the table of contents, this is the recommended version to print.
Yehudiana - Reliving the Menuhin Odyssey, Book Two:
Part 1 Post-war Utopian Visions
Prelude
Vision One: Family
Chapter 28 Chained to a Firefly
1947 – Marriage of Yehudi and Diana
1948 – Birth of Gerard Menuhin
Chapter 29 Flaming Passions
1938– Hephzibah and married life in Australia
1940 – Birth of Kron Nicholas
1940 – Yehudi’s concert tour of Australia
1947 – Nicholas family tour of USA and Europe
1951 – Yehudi makes return tour of Australia
Chapter 30 Breaking Ties
1951 – Birth of Jeremy Menuhin
1952 – Nola’s marital and family tensions
1953 – Yehudi and Diana begin move to Europe
Chapter 31 Tenure in Tuscany
1954 – Menuhin family in Switzerland
– Hephzibah ends marriage to Lindsay Nicholas
1958 – Menuhins reside in Italy, purchase a London home, and plan building a Swiss chalet
1959 – London home occupied
Chapter 32 There’s no Place Like Home
1960 – Gstaad chalet completed
1962 – Greek holiday house purchased
Vision Two:Music
Chapter 33 The Patron Saint of Music
1947 – Yehudi stars in Concert Magic film and begins series of visits to Berlin
1948 – Yehudi makes début on television, plays at Edinburgh Festival, and introduces music of Bartk to Paris audience
1949 – Menuhins tour South America
– Yehudi and Louis Kentner première Walton Sonata
– Recordings with Furtwängler
Chapter 34 Grappling with Gremlins
1946 – Antal Doráti encourages Yehudi in conducting
1950 – Yehudi conducts in Europe
– Bowing problems resurface
1951 – Hephzibah and Yehudi give first recital in London’s new Royal Festival Hall
1953 – Yehudi begins re-recording repertoire
1955 – Death of George Enesco
Chapter 35 Festival Fever
1957 – First Gstaad season and expansion of the Festival
1958 – Robert Masters forms his Chamber Orchestra and begins collaboration with Yehudi
1959 – Yehudi as Artistic Director of the Bath Festival
1965 – 1966: Diana, Ravi Shankar, and opera at Bath Festival; Yehudi gives première of Bart?k’s First Violin Concerto
1968 – Yehudi resigns from Bath Festival
1969 – Windsor Festival collaboration begins
1976 – Yehudi inaugurates Bermuda Festival
Chapter 36 Jazz, Jousts, and Juries
1971 – Yehudi appears on television with Grappelli
1973 – First Grappelli/Menuhin recording released
1979 – 1980 Yehudi as founder of Portsmouth International String Quartet Competition and catalyst for the Concours Sarasate
Vision Three: Politics
Chapter 37 Stirring Hornets’ Nests
1945 – Post-war visits to Germany and Romania
– Yehudi defends Furtwängler
1950 – 1951; Attacking the policy of apartheid Yehudi makes first visit to Israel and Japan
Chapter 38 Currying Favour
1952 – Menuhins on first visit to India
1954 – Return Indian visit
Chapter 39 Tilting at Soviet Windmills
1946– Yehudi’s concern for Iron Curtain countries
1962 – Diana, Hephzibah, and Yehudi tour Russia.
1971 – Yehudi chairs IMC Moscow Congress
Chapter 40 Poles Apart
1957 – Menuhins visit Poland
1974 – Yehudi and the Greek plebiscite
1975 – Yehudi mediates over resolutions critical of Israel
Vision Four:Education
Chapter 41 A School of his own
1945 – Yehudi visits Moscow’s Central School of Music
1963 – MenuhinSchool opens
Vision Five:Food and Fitness
Chapter 42 Yoghurt and Yoga
1953 – Yehudi as subject of yoga profile
1956 – Yehudi recovers from back operation
Vision Six:The Environment
Chapter 43 A Car Too Far
1972 – Yehudi on environmental degradation
1976 – Yehudi and electric cars
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Part 2 Fiddler on the Hoof
Chapter 44 The life in a year of...
1975 – Eleanor Hope appointed to head Menuhin office
1977 – Yehudi establishes International Menuhin Music
– Academy and Live Music Now!
– Publication of autobiography (Unfinished Journey)
– Filming of The Music of Man series
– Hephzibah diagnosed with cancer
Chapter 45 Farewell Nola
1978– Annual US concert and recital tour
– Yehudi purchases Guarnerius del Gesú violin
– Death of Nola Menuhin
Chapter 46 The Mad Hornet
1978 – US tour continued
– Hephzibah responds to treatment
Chapter 47 Flight from the Gilded Cage
1978 – Menuhin office relocated
– Hephzibah suffers relapse
– Yehudi conducts Kennedy and Yo Yo Ma
– Sale of Menuhin violins
– Crises at LMN!
Chapter 48 Cincinnati Blues
1979 – US concert tour
Chapter 49 Flare-up at LMN!
1979 – Crises at LMN! continued
– Yehudi begins collaboration with Polish Chamber Orchestra
– Establishment of Portsmouth International String Quartet Competition
– Swiss tensions over financing of IMMA
– Yehudi and Hephzibah begin Australian recital tour
Chapter 50 Willing Yehudi On
1979 – Menuhins visit China
1980 – US tour with Hephzibah
– Hephzibah’s condition becomes critical
– Music of Man series launched
– Menuhins suffer first home burglary
Chapter 51 Farewell Hephzibah
1981 – Death of Hephzibah
– Memorial Concert
– US winter tour
– Menuhins explore moving house
– Yehudi promotes career of young Chinese student
Chapter 52 Gstaad’s Silver Lining
1981 –Menuhin Festival Gstaad celebrates 25th season
Chapter 53 From Two The Grove
1981 – Yehudi’s first season conducting opera
– Diana faces reality of house move
1982 – Death of Moshe Menuhin
– Diana chooses new London residence
– Yehudi clashes with UK Foreign Office
Chapter 54 A Sting in the Tale
1982 – Gstaad Festival season
– Menuhins on return visit to China
1983 – Yehudi faces financial problems and sells two Stradivari violins
– Yehudi faces citizenship dilemma
– Papal concert with Polish Chamber Orchestra
Chapter 55 The Answer to Prayer
1984 – Yehudi becomes victim of conspiracy to defraud
– Diana publishes Fiddler’s Moll
– Yehudi conducts season of Mozart opera in Bonn
1985 – US concert tour with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
– Yehudi granted British citizenship
1986 – Legal wrangle over Belgravia house restoration
1987 – Yehudi awarded Order of Merit
– Menuhins visit Russia
Chapter 56 Film Exposure
1990 – Diana, Yehudi, and Griselda Kentner react to
broadcast on UK television of Tony Palmer’s film,
Menuhin, A Family Portrait,.
Chapter 57 Praise The Lord!
1991 – Yehudi celebrates 75th birthday, becomes his own concert agent, promotes various projects through a new Foundation based in Brussels, awarded joint Wolf Prize in Israel, and elevated to peerage as Baron Menuhin of Stoke d’Abernon
Chapter 58 The Don In Full Flow
1994 – Yehudi faces domestic crisis
– Gstaad Festival stages Don Giovanni
– Gidon Kremer accepts offer to succeed Yehudi as Artistic Director of Gstaad Festival
Chapter 59 A Parliament Of His Own
1994 – Yehudi as UNESCO Ambassador of Goodwill and proposes establishment of a Parliament of Cultures
– Menuhins suffer third major burglary
1995 – Commemoration of 50th anniversary of Allied bombing of Dresden
– Death of Griselda Kentner
Chapter 60 The Only Thing Left
1995 – Menuhins visit South Africa, Spain, and Russia;
– Yehudi conducts Dusseldorf season of Idomeneo, and celebrates 50th anniversary of signing of League of Nations Charter.
Chapter 61 More Projects and Politics
1995 – Yehudi advances cause of Parliament of Cultures, expands concept of MUS-E schools project, gives final public performance on violin, and visits Romania.
Chapter 62 Fanfare to a Man of Spirit
1995 – Menuhins make final visits to Japan and India
1996 – Marutha Menuhin celebrates 100th birthday
– Yehudi’s 80th birthday season begins
– Menuhins feted in Oman
Chapter 63 Last Hurrah in New York
1996 – Yehudi in birthday juggernaut.
– Edna Michel organises New York concert of new music conducted by Yehudi and dedicated to better understanding between cultures
Chapter 64 The Whirlwind on Ozone
1996 – The Merry Widow performed at Gstaad Festival
– Peace Concert held in Sarajevo
– Death of Marutha Menuhin
Chapter 65 Plus ça change
1997 – Yehudi records complete cycle of Schubert symphonies
– Menuhins mark 50th wedding anniversary
– First meeting of Assembly of Cultures
1998 – Yehudi unprepared for opening performances of Vienna production of Otello
– Gidon Kremer ends tenure at Gstaad Festival
Chapter 66 Farewell Down Under
1998 – Yehudi’s final tour of Australia
Chapter 67 One Last Windmill
1998 – Trial of Anwar Ibrahim and Yehudi’s visit to Malaysia
– Yehudi in last appearance at Royal Albert Hall
Chapter 68 Guru to the World
1999 – Yehudi embarks on final tour of Germany (March)
– Overtaken by illness and hospitalised in Berlin.
– Funeral, Memorial Service, and Commemoration Concert
Epilogue
Whatever Happened To....?