Yehudi Menuhin

"Obliged to find an apartment of their own, my parents searched the neighbourhood and chose one within walking distance of the park. Showing them out after they had viewed it, the landlady said: "And you'll be glad to know I don't take Jews." Her mistake made clear to her, the antisemitic landlady was renounced, and another apartment found. But her blunder left its mark. Back on the street my mother made a vow. Her unborn baby would have a label proclaiming his race to the world. He would be called "The Jew" [Yehudi]."

"This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling amongst them."

"Actually, I was gazing in my usual state of being half absent in my own world and half in the present. I have usually been able to 'retire' in this way. I was also thinking that my life was tied up with the instrument and would I do it justice?"

"Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous."

"The violinist is that peculiarly human phenomenon distilled to a rare potency - half tiger, half poet."

"To play great music, you must keep your eyes on a distant star."

"I can only think of music as something inherent in every human being - a birthright. Music coordinates mind, body and spirit."

"The violinist must possess the poet's gift of piercing the protective hide which grows on propagandists, stockbrokers and slave traders, to penetrate the deeper truth which lies within."

"I would hate to think I am not an amateur. An amateur is one who loves what he is doing. Very often, I'm afraid, the professional hates what he is doing. So, I'd rather be an amateur."

"We embark unhesitatingly on the path, in a direction that is absolutely right and urgent, supported by everyone, in the knowledge that this path is but a learning process... We have to keep on learning, creating, applying, by-passing, touching upon, refining and clarifying a number of notions and details that need to be improvised and applied and which, thank God, we cannot foresee. The only rigidity lies in our will, our conviction that we are on the right road and that our initiatives are most pressing."

"Peace may sound simple — one beautiful word — but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal."

"The art of creation lies in the gift of perceiving the particular and generalizing it, thus creating the particular again. It is therefore a powerful transforming force and a generator of creative solutions in relation to a given problem. It is the currency of human exchanges, which enables the sharing of states of the soul and conscience, and the discovery of new fields of experience."

"What guides us is children's response, their joy in learning to dance, to sing, to live together. It should be a guide to the whole world."

"Each human being has the eternal duty of transforming what is hard and brutal into a subtle and tender offering, what is crude into refinement, what is ugly into beauty, ignorance into knowledge, confrontation into collaboration, thereby rediscovering the child’s dream of a creative reality incessantly renewed by death, the servant of life, and by life the servant of love."

"Homeopathy is the safest and more reliable approach to ailments and has withstood the assaults of established medical practice for over 100 years."

"There were other gurus and other lessons, but not until I met Iyengar did I take up the study regularly. My first meeting with him was like the casting of a spell. We made each other's acquaintance in Mumbai. He appeared in my rooms one morning and straightaway made it clear that the "audition" to follow was mine as much as his. For all my celebrity, to him I was just another Western body knotted through and through."

"First and foremost, yoga made its contribution to my quest to understand consciously the mechanics of violin playing, a quest which by 1951 had long been one of the themes of my life. All influences pointed to less tension, more effective application of energy, the breaking down of resistance in every joint, the coordination of all motions into one motion; and illustrated the profound truth that strength comes not from strength but from the subtle comprehension of process, proportion and balance."

"We in the Western world have grown to understand matter as imprisoned light, and light as liberated matter, yet this has had no influence on our spiritual thought. In practical terms it only led to the creation of the atom bomb."

"When I was a boy no one seemed to ask where the energies come from. Land, oil, coal, air seemed inexhaustible. Now we are realizing how our very life depends upon restoring not only our balance with nature, but also that balance within ourselves. We are depleting our reserves of spirit, health, courage and faith at an alarming rate. The quiet practice of yoga is, in its humble yet effective way, an antidote."

"That India should offer me at once a homeland and a new-found land with lasting power to astonish seemed only right, for it is precisely the reconciling of contradictions Within an all-accepting unity that is the country's genius and its abiding appeal to me. India, I feel, has softened my Talmudical adjudications between right and wrong, upheld innocent acceptance of the lovely things of life, given me much that was new yet welcome, understandable, waiting to experienced."

"Despite predisposition in India's favor, I have to acknowledge that Indian music took me by surprise. I knew neither its nature nor its richness, but here, if anywhere, I found vindication of my conviction that India was the original source."

"I've had marvelous and incredible luck, and devoted parents, sisters, friends, and teachers. What more can one ask? These things contribute enormously. Probably the major part of one's success is due to these factors."

"Why is compassion not part of our established curriculum, an inherent part of our education? Compassion, awe, wonder, curiosity, exaltation, humility — these are the very foundation of any real civilization, no longer the prerogatives, the preserves of any one church, but belonging to everyone, every child in every home, in every school."

"Working with no other orchestra gave me as much satisfaction as my work, as soloist and conductor, with the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra."

"It was a true inspiration to spend as much time with them [Sinfonia Varsovia] as possible, to enjoy the deep satisfaction I derive from our music-making together."

"Many people do not realise that it takes considerably more art and skill to play the violin lightly than it does to play it loudly. Indeed, the best possible training for young violinists is learning to play pianissimo and without pressure."

"In playing Beethoven the violinist should be a medium. There is little that is personal or that can be reduced to ingratiating sounds, pleasing slides and so on. Everything is dictated by the significance, the weight, structure and direction of the notes and passages themselves."

"It is absolutely vital to hold it as lightly as possible - rather as one might pick up a newborn bird."

"One should feel in the right arm the vibration of the bow hair on the strings. [...] The moment tension or hardness enters into the hand then of course the vibrations will not be felt- they cannot penetrate."

"Learning an imposed method seemed not in my nature"

"What fascinated my imagination was the tremendous feat, which I felt I should be perfectly able to accomplish."

"[At age 7] In eight hours of concentrated practice between my twice-weekly lessons, I memorized the A major and played it for Persinger."

"To be an outstanding musician, you have to be very attentive to the smallest detail and willing to have infinite patience in the pursuit of your ideal."

"Even at the risk of losing all the golden eggs of the future, I had to find out what made the goose lay those eggs"

"Undoubtedly I had lost time in balking at scales, arpeggios. [...] There is an advantage in establishing the top story of one's constructions first: One has seen the heights; one knows what one is building for and what must be sustained."

"The best teacher is the one who himself has had to struggle to learn."

"I imagine that whatever contribution I can make to teaching derives from having had to rethink and re-create my technique."

"The teacher offers guidance here and there, but the primary factor, the driving force, in your relationship and work together is the student's own commitment and desire to learn. Teaching is like sailing: The wind and the sails give the boat its motion. Your role (as a teacher) is to steer and guide."

"The idea that a pupil is a passive recipient, a container waiting to be filled by the teacher's knowledge and instruction - all this is nonsense. Teaching is a living relationship, of give and take, of mutual learning."

"There comes a time when the student turns his back on the teacher. His playing cannot have the necessary security, autonomy, self-faith, or communicative power until he believes his interpretation is his own."

"This is the best and ultimate purpose of conducting: Not only to lead (the musicians) and keep them together, not only to make their performance easier and simpler, but also to guide them so that they can play as they have always longed to play."

"He was one of the celebrities like author Aldous Huxley who was taught by B. K. S. Iyengar the Iyengar brand of yoga."

"There is... no definitive interpretation for him but the search for repose, for a place where music, far from any pretension, vibrates naturally, where it can breathe more than show off."

"Yehudi Menuhin could play difficult violin pieces by Mozart, Beethoven and Bach at age 7. He played in Carnegie Hall at 11. He was 12 when he made his first record. At 13, he'd played in the finest concert halls in Berlin, London, and Paris. At 19, he embarked on his first world tour – 110 concerts, 63 cities and 13 countries. Yet at 19 he couldn't play a simple A major scale or a basic three-octave arpeggio. And he'd never figured out music theory."

"For young Menuhin, each piece was a goal. Once he heard something he wanted to play, he'd focus his mind on it. He practiced at least four hours daily. When he could play one work perfectly, he simply moved on to the next."

"It wasn't enough to be a great soloist - Menuhin wanted to be a great leader in music. He wanted to teach, open a music school and conduct the world's best musical groups. Menuhin knew that if he wanted to teach a class or lead an orchestra, he couldn't rest on his past achievements. He needed to understand the steps he'd taken to play so well."

"So back to school he went. To nail down the way his fingers moved, Menuhin learned every scale imaginable. He learned to play them at every speed. He searched the library for books on violin technique. He went to the best teachers and asked them to explain things the books didn't say. He asked gymnasts and dancers for advice on the most precise way to move his bowing arm. To understand how to control his bowing better, he learned the names of each muscle in the back, upper arms, forearms and fingers. He studied drawings made by Leonardo da Vinci, so he'd know what hands looked like on the inside. Then Menuhin broke his performance down even more. Studying India's exercise system of yoga, he started to understand his breathing as he played."

"In 1942, Menuhin conducted for the first time. In the years that followed, he led the New York Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C., among others. He taught students around the world. He established the Gstaad Festival in Switzerland and directed the Bath Festival in England. In 1963, he founded the world-renowned Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke D'Aubernon, England. Menuhin became a British subject in 1985, was knighted in 1987 and became a life peer in 1993."

"Although he seemed almost the embodiment of the classical musician who was lost in the spiritual intensity of his art, he, in fact, devoted his 75-year career to a remarkably wide range of musical, humanitarian and even political activities--building cultural bridges that ranged from defying the political climate during the Cold War to a groundbreaking collaboration with Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar in the 1960s."

"The world has lost a great soul, whose passion was music and humanity."