The Human Touch

THIS being the Jewish Daily Bulletin, it is no more than fitting, even at the pleasant risk of writing another column about te Menuhin family, that we put into print again, in as definite a form as possible, the story off how the greatest living virtuoso of the violin go his name of Yehudi-Jew, Parenthetically, I noted, duirng the hours I spent with the family, that when he was referred to, in his absence, or addressed, in his presence, by father, mother or aunt, it was with the full name of Yehudi, every syllable receiving full value, and by no contraction, which would have detracted from its dignity. Young Menuhin’s use of that name is as classic an example as the race has of a name conferred in contempt taking on a simple dignity, a dignity that it would not be exaggerating to call grandeur.

The father told me the story whiel we were waiting for Yehudi. Moshe Menuhin-the name was originally pronunced Menuchin-was in the first graduation class of the Hebrew Gymnasium at Tel Avie; in fact, helped build the school and studied there when there was yet no habitation in that place and he had to commute from Jaffa.

He then came to New York and studied at New York University, where he met the girl who became his bride and the mother of Yehudi. Her given name is Marutha and she comes from the south of Russia. They were married on the day England entered the war, August 7, 1914. The young Mrs. Menuhin went to look for an apartment in the vicinity of the campus-the real compus way up University avenue, not the fake campus way downtown on Univeristy place. She found a large sun-drenched apartment at University avenue and 181st street, an apartment having every desired convenience. She gave a deposit and was about to leave the house, but the renting agent, not content to let well enough alone, had to impress Mrs. Menuhin with her good luck in being allowed to live there, affecting destiny in a way he could not have dreamed of. He said something like this to her: “You know, I think you’ll like this house very much. This is an exclusive place, we’re very careful whom we rent rooms to,”and, a little more confidentially: “We don’t allow Jews here.”Mrs. Menuhin and been no less selfconscious a Jew than her husband and no insult could have been more painful to her. “In her wild Crimean way” -as her husband now describes it – she blurted out: “YOu are talking to a Jewess. I should like to have my deposit back.” The rentig agent strove to undo his business-not to say social-eror, gave her assurance that he would be glad to have her as a tenant, nevertheless, insisted that he had meant no offense implied that if she was a Jewss, she was a “white” Jewesss and wouldn’t she be so good as to consent to remain? The reply was No. She retrieved her deposit and as she stood on the steps of the house, she vowed that if ever she had a son, she would call him Yehudi and he would stand, or fall, by that name.

“And, thank God,” commented the father, “he has been more of an honor to his people than a hundred… “We refrain from quoting the nature of the hundred persons where work sheds less glory on the race than does Yehudi Menuhin. It was agreed that the name of Yehudi might have been a curse to an ordinary average boy, but the name has not imposed on his boy the pathological abnomal race-feeling which it might have sharpened in another, said Mr. Menuhin. Perhaps Yehudi Menuhin can afford to proclaim in his name his race wherever he goes only because the music that pours out of his violin transcends the limitations of any race, and all races, perhaps. The man whose name proclaims one race speaks in a tongue which is the property of no one race, and appeals to all

Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York January 22, 1917, and at the age of nine months was taken to San Francisco, which has since looked upon Yehudi as its own. The father tells me that after his stradivarious violin, the thing of which Yehudi is most poud is the badge which makes him an honorary member of that city’s police department. Before he was a year old his paretns sensed the power that music had over him. He was carried to his first concert, a matinee performaance of the San francisco Symphony Orchestra and lay perfectly still, manifesting great delight. He was taken weekly thereafter. At three he was given a tiny violin to play on and a year afterward a child’s size instrument was given him. It was on this that he began his first lesson,s with Louis Persinger, who is now associated with the Juiliard School of Music. The rest is musical history – and wonder.

Every concert appearence of his has been a revelation. he palys programs which would exhoust veterans of the violin. He behaves that music shold be played as written, not in edited or abbreviated versions. He is capable of giving new freshness and vitality to such a composition as Beethoven’s Kreuzer Sonata and his name has t he magic effect of drawing ten thousand to the same hall to hear him and on the rare occasion when he performed overr the radio thens of millongs turned their dials Yehudi-ward. Even though he is no longer the boy prodigy but the conscious artist, growing in maturity from year to year, there is also in him something of the instrument, a creature who is himself the medium for powers beyond his knowledge or control. If this seems mystical nonsense to the rationalistc, let them “explain on their own basis the possession in him of such powers as are his.

As an indication of his loyal and affectionate nature, I quote from a letter Yehudi Menuhi wrote to his “dear and beloved Maestro Toscanini,” fron St. Louis, when he heard of the half-million dollar campaign to save the Philharmonic-Sysmphony Orchestra:

“May I humbly offer you, dear tearch and Master, my services to appear without fee with you and your orchestra at some future date this or next season, at a mutually conventient time, in a special public performance, for the benefit of the orchesta. To set a good example to those wro are still rich, richer than we muscians anyhow, left each one of us, you, the orchestra and I, donate our services free completley. The sum of $5,00,000 shuold be immediately secured to prove our rights to Democracy and Civilization. A sum of $500,000 or double that amount should not be in the way of spiritual life in America. The democracy which we love and of which we are proud should not have to wait until a “benevolent” dictator donates or dictates the support of a noble cause in a free and civilized country>

“I should be most happy to play with you and your orchestra anything you wish: Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Paganini: anything you say. It is a privilege as well as a grand lesson to play with you or for yor.

“Your adoring and faithful Yehudi Menuhin”