Yehudi Menuhin

with my now, well, they were quite elderly then, my in-laws, because they wanted to go to the International Festival.

And we saw Rudolf Nureyev dance on stage, Yehudi Menuhin playing violin.

I think they were in the same show.

I mean, now...

Outstanding conductors include Gabrilowitsch, Russian-Jew, Walter and Klemperer, German, Koussevitzky and Smolens, Russian-Jews, Stokowski, Polish, Ormandy and Rappe, Hungarians, Ganz, Swiss, Koschets, Ukrainian, Szell, Russian, Busch, Dane, Kindler, Netherlander, Damrosch, German, Rodzinski, Yugoslav, Victor Kolar, Czech.

Leading violin players of worldwide fame are Elman, Heifetz, Zimbalist, Russian-Jews, and Yehudi Menuhin, Romanian-Jew, Ysaye, Belgian, De Foch, Czech, Predakyvych, Ukrainian.

Famous pianists include Rachmaninoff, Russian, Iturbi, Spaniard, Hanti, Hungarian.

Leading flutist is Kalamaros, Greek.

Not even

Yehudi Menuhin wants a thousand violins.

It's too

many violins.

They apparently originated in South India, arriving here as early as the 13th century and setting up largely a ground gall with strategic village outposts as far north as Kandy and even Chilau.

To watch the prune as cinnamon bush is like watching Yehudi Menuhin play Elgar's violin concerto in B minor.

Our homespun approach is infinitely more modest, but it gets the job done.

Pruning starts every year at about 18 months into the plant's life, with cross branches removed and the plants kept to a height of no more than three metres.

Now, honestly, I'm not trying to put you off.

There are also heartwarming tales of collaborations with some of the world's finest composers, including Joaquin Rodrigo, Malcolm Arnold, Philip Glass, and my brother Andrew, as well as making music with the likes of John Cleolane, Stephan Grappelli, and working with some of the world's greatest conductors, including my favourite of them all, Yehudi Menuhin.

But it's not easy to write about classical music for a public which is not always interested, as the BBC Music Magazine reviewer very politely put it.

So I set out to inject as much humour as possible.

I wanted to explore more English music, particularly that of the 20th century, so I created the English String Orchestra, with whom I was music and artistic director for 25 years, and made over a hundred recordings.

We toured throughout Europe in all the major halls, and I invited the late and great Yehudi Menuhin to be the orchestra's principal guest conductor, with whom we made numerous tours, including the US, and were frequent guests at his festival in Gstaad, Switzerland.

I also became the music director of the Jyväskylä Sinfonia in Finland, an odd but very happy marriage, which will be the story for a future podcast.

And then I came to the New Haven Symphony in 2007 to be its 10th music director and started teaching at the Yale School of Music, finally becoming the director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra in 2018, and retired ostensibly in 2025.

Yeah.

'Cause I, yeah, ultimately it always has to be about the emotion, doesn't it? There's a story that Gábor Takács-Nagys tells all the time about, um, how when he was on the jury of the Wigmore Hall International String Competition and Menuhin was the chairman of the board, um, Menuhin said to them, "You can forgive them mistakes, but to not play with emotion is unforgivable."

Mm.

And it, it's that.

And yes, I was actually listening not just to Heifetz, but to many, let's say, golden age violinists before I started the violin.

I was listening to Oistrakh and Menuhin and sharing.

And then when I grew older, I actually started telling them apart so I could recognize their sounds.

They were so individual, like everyone had such a unique way of playing.