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Texts by Menuhin
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“ … Speaking for myself, I am the most fortunate of human beings, having music for expression and communication, the great and fascinating musical scores to study, and passing my time with the greatest minds and works of the past and present. Of course it must not be, nor given my make-up, can music become, an escape. I am constantly thinking of ways and means to improve, alleviate, protect, guide and inspire in practical terms. …” Yehudi Menuhin – Unfinished Journey, Autobiography
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The MUS-E Project: Apologia
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In natural evolution, there is no such thing as jumping a stage, even the smallest stage of any given process. The process is continuous and cumulative.
Today, however, our thinking is largely divorced from the organic and is largely influenced, in abstract and geometrical forms, by disparate and fleeting impressions which combine and dissociate at will.
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Traum, Alptraum oder Vision?
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The situation in the Middle East and the establishment of piece is the theme in this article by Yehudi Menuhin, written in September 1988 and published in the German newspaper DIE ZEIT. Please click on the link to download the article: Traum, Alptraum oder Vision? Yehudi Menuhin, DIE ZEIT, no 38, 1988
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“… Having had long experience with my own schools, I have felt, more and more strongly, the importance of giving every child a background of example and activity which might stimulate its own longings and potential.
In the autumn of 1994 I launched a project known as MUS-E: Music-in-Europe. However, it is much more than that name implies.
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“ … The good teacher – of violin playing or of virtually any subject – is one who communicates the sense of being carried along, and encourages you at the same time to be constantly correcting – your posture, your progress – without falling. And the good teacher conveys not only a sense of being carried along, but also of giving yourself, abandoning yourself, as much as possible. …”
Yehudi Menuhin
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On Composition of Music and the Purpose of the Arts
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“…Human-created art begins with self-dialogue, with self-consciousness in the widest sense, and ends with the communication of what we see of ourselves and others, and of what they see of themselves and of us. An artist’s self-dialogue is a constant adjusting, correcting, re-balancing, of elements within himself. The very basis of life is to develop imbalances – often unconsciously – which we then correct. Perfect balance with no separation, would be no life at all; continuous imbalance would offer no means or resolution. …”
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Young People: the Best Promise for Our Future
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“… From my part, I have a very high regard for the youth of today as I have come to know them through the various music schools and universities. […] Admittedly … there are too many unfocused, wasted youngsters, who may have known no parental love, guidance or care. I hope to contact some of these through my MUS-E project. However, the majority are far more alert, advanced and awake than ever their parents were, keenly aware of their responsibilities and of the great dangers of our contemporary world. Whatever country they come from, these young people hold the best promise for human survival. They constitute a form of global collectivity cutting across all laws of demarcation and sharing the same concerns and the same hopes.” Yehudi Menuhin – Unfinished Journey, Autobiography
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Prepare Ourselves for Everything
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“… The other important element in my life is exercise. It is not sufficient to try to do what we must do, we have to prepare ourselves for everything. The ballet dancer does not dance just because he or she feels like it; an important part of the day goes into the exercise necessary to prepare the body for that ecstatic spontaneity and ease with which a fantasy is transformed into a movement.
We have to imagine the beautiful before we create it; we have to know what we want to communicate before we find the words. Most people, in fact, arrive at their duties or obligations with no preparation whatsoever. They may dress before they are washed; they may put on their clothes before they have run about or stretched on all fours, which for me is the very basis of all exercises. …” Yehudi Menuhin – Unfinished Journey, Autobiography
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Our Society - Music Should not be an Escape - Admiration and Compassion for Others
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“… The abuse of authority, the exploitation and the persecution of human beings more sensitive and often more worthwhile than the offending exploiter or persecutor, whether operating in physical proximity or, as increasingly possible, at remote control – there aberrations, today considered normal and even “justified” by exigencies termed “economic” or “nationalistic”, these conditions which obtain in the lowest and the highest levels of society in men’s minds and hearts, are abhorrent to me. …”
Yehudi Menuhin – Unfinished Journey, Autobiography
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