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NO musician embodied the musical spirit in its highest essence more than mystical violinist Yehudi Menuhin, be it breaking barriers and creating a concept of universal music or his fruitful relationship with artistes like sitarist Ravi Shankar among others, says a new book.
"Some of the greatest classical recordings of this century were made by Menuhin with the conductor Furtwangler...Music for Menuhin was a pure, all-forgiving force that went beyond hatred and revenge," writes Kolkata-based writer-filmmaker Kishore Chatterjee in Beethoven and Friends*. Published by Niyogi Books, Beethoven and Friends presents the history of Western classical music through unusual stories of the many lives that shaped it. According to the writer, Indians have a very high esteem of Menuhin. "In the Indian
context, Menuhin will always have a special niche, not only because of
his sympathy with Indian music, or his friendship with Pandit Ravi
Shankar, or because Jawaharlal Nehru attended his concerts, but
because Menuhin was ultimately a renaissance personality much more
than just a violinist — he was a humanitarian and a missionary of
music," "In this, he was much like the other great musician Mendelssohn." The book addresses many aspects of Western classical music like why did Western classical music become polyphonic during the Renaissance? Is Western classical music associated with only the classical period? How did the 20th century impact Western classical music? What is the fate of Western classical music today? The writer says Menuhin was a music ambassador in true sense of the term, not for any particular country but for universal music. "Old timers in Kolkata still talk of his concerts at the New Empire as if they had happened yesterday. Others remember him sharing jokes with Ravi Shankar. Still others cherish his many recordings, which introduced them to European classical music. Some quote his pithy sayings and words of spiritual wisdom and talk of the spirit of peace which he emanated," says the book. Chatterjee says that it is as a recording artiste that Menuhin will be remembered by millions across the globe. "It is his recorded legacy that will take him into the next centuries. Menuhin had been recording for about 70 years, and for most of the time on one label — which is some kind of a record," the book says. *Beethoven and
Friends
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