MUSIC
First fiddle?
GILLIAN WIDDICOMBE
Marching towards 0 Level Music, I was indelibly instructed that the two greatest violinists in the world were Jascha Heifetz, for his wizardly technique, and Yehudi Menuhin, for his soulful tone. The point was then enforced by the school gramophone scraping its way round Heifetz's recording of the Tchaikovsky Concerto and Menuhin's of the Beethoven. Time has passed and Heifetz, now in his seventieth year, lives in virtual retirement near Los Angeles.
Menuhin, only fifty-four, lives in Highgate: has taken up conducting, educating, festival- ising, health foods, yoga and playing duets with the Prime Minister. And he played the Beethoven Concerto again at the Festival Hall last week.
Whether Menuhin is still a good violinist, let alone a great or the greatest, is one of the hottest subjects in the musical profes- sion. The resentment is understandable: his public is huge, while that for a steady young professional such as Ralph Holmes is tiny.
And when he has an off day even the music stands wilt with shame. One occasion I
remember was an important concert—with, I think, a visiting Russian orchestra—when Menuhin not only came unstuck in the first movement of the Shostakovich Concerto but had to stop the whole performance for a couple of minutes while he consulted the conductor's score. Cadenzas are his most frequent Achilles heel. In the Beethoven Concerto he still plays the Kreisler cadenzas, which are unnecessarily tough. Better, surely, to play simpler ones of his own writing in- stead of the scratchy tangles we heard last week.
But my point is neither to repeat the nervous problems which have undermined his bowing arm, nor to dissect the ways in which he is not as good as he was at the age of fifteen. Just to state three points in his favour and three against. First, it is still true that he can make a rich and soulful sound. can still suspend a phrase in the slow move- ment of the Beethoven more beautifully than anyone else. Admittedly, last week he was obviously playing one of the finest Stradi- varius violins in the world; but to make such an instrument sing to the full takes Menuhin's kind of even vibrato, particularly in a high position. Secondly, there are a number of pieces which actively suit his bowing problems on a bad day. Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale is one; the Bartok rhapsodies and concertos are others, all deserving more performances.
And there is no doubt that Menuhin's role as musical magnet has a genuine, worthwhile factor. To judge from the applause after the first movement of the Beethoven, and the little girl behind me who asked if she could have another After Eight, Menuhin increas- ingly attracts a large number of people who would probably not become interested in the concert hall through less.
On the other hand, it seems to me to be asking for trouble to play a concerto like the Beethoven with his own orchestra and no conductor. Perhaps Menuhin finds that the distraction of conducting heals his nerves about playing; but the orchestral playing of his faithful followers was flabby and tenta- tive in the concerto, which needs a fuller sound altogether. Besides, a strong conductor would help to distract us from the things_
that go wrong for.-Menuhin: the last move- ment, for instance. '
Seccpudly, I wish Menuhin the ‘onductor would take a note from Harry Blech and the London Mozart Players. Their concerts present similar cases: a large, regular audience but not st) much cram in the performances nowadays. However, Blech takes great trouble to engage and encourage outstanding young soloists (like the excellent Korean pianist Tong II Han, who played a Mozart concerto at last week's 1-MP con- cert); which makes even the prudent critic admire and enjoy his enterprise. Menuhin is far too ready to rely on the mediocre talent of his own family circle. Hepzibah's per- formance of another Mozart piano concerto was less than colourful. No doubt this brand of nepotism was fostered by his years as director of the Bath Festival; and was it not one of the reasons why he eventually left Bath? In which case it is surprising that the lesson has not yet been learned.
Thirdly I sometimes question his role as musical guru. Last week, on the BBC World Service, I caught him expounding the opinion that advanced British musical educa- tion is adritirible in 'quantity and quality. Which is chauvinistic rubbish. For instance, we have nothing to match. America's Juilliard School and Curtis Institute; nor, as their recent. London visit showed, the string play- ing of the Toho Gakuen school in Japan. And generally speaking, musical education is amateur in its approach, inadequate in its supervision, and cruelly undersubsidised. For one who cares sufficiently to start his own school, Menuhin's head is strangely high in the skies.
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