It always amuses me to have contact with truly great and famous musicians and to discover they are genuine but are really just more (or usually much more) talented versions of ourselves! They worry about the same things-- have the same relationship troubles and in the midst of it all, still have to do their laundry!One such individual I have had the good fortune to meet was Yehudi Menuhin.
Menuhin has always been a big influence for me. It is because of him that I took up the violin. My uncle Kevin, genius electronic engineer (after whom I was named), made a stereogram for his father, my grandfather, when stereo was the newest thing. This was in the mid 1960’s. To go with this, Uncle Kevin bought one of each type of record. We were always amazed that my grandparents had a Beatles record!
Electronics became a passion, probably as a result of hero- worshipping my uncle. Playing records was also an escape- while the older folks sat in the other room gossiping about all the goings on in the country neighborhood, I would play records from my grandfathers’ collection. Among that number was the Beethoven violin concerto with Menuhin. I don’t know what it was, but from the first timpani notes and the woodwind chords, I was hooked. Then, when the violin came in, I was transfixed-- I had never heard anything so beautiful! My mother was a pianist and a music teacher, my father- an amateur singer who accompanied himself on the piano. Something of their talent and love of music paid off- I begged to learn the violin and so, at the age of ten, I started to take lessons.
You can imagine my delight, when six years later, I had left my native Belfast to study in Manchester at the specialist music school, Chetham’s School of Music and discovered that Menuhin was coming to play the Bruch concerto with our school orchestra in a joint project with Wells Cathedral School. I was learning the concerto and so, before he came, I had the chance to play it through with the orchestra. This was at thrill in itself.
The concert was an amazing experience although, to be honest, Menuhin was by then suffering from his famous bow shakes. Even so, it is obvious what an inspiration this was for a little boy from Belfast. But lest you think you can take the boy out of Ireland, realize too that Ireland and the Irish were never far from the boy!
As luck would have it, before the concert I was in the washroom (the loo in Britain!) and was standing at the urinal. Imagine my surprise, when who should walk in, and stand in the urinal next to me but Mr. Yehudi Menuhin, the great man himself! I stood there for some time and finally caught his eye and said, “So, you do this too!”
Some fifteen years later, in 1992, The French government was opening embassies in the new Baltic States. Of course, being the French, with each opening they had a chamber concert of French baroque music with France’s premier early music ensemble, Les Arts Florissants, with whom I had the honour to be concert- master. After each concert there were an official reception.
Somehow, this tour would bring about a strange aligning of the stars!
When we were in Lithuania, doing our concert, Yehudi Menuhin was also in town conducting the Lithuanian Symphony doing Messiah! (Go figure!) He was invited to the French Embassy reception and because I was a violinist I was sat opposite him.
After a little while I said that we had in fact met before—that he had gone to Chetham’s School of Music to play the Bruch concerto, and it was a great experience for the students—and also for me personally, because I played it with the orchestra in the rehearsals before he arrived. Very graciously he said that he remembered—but I knew that he hadn’t!
I thought I would chance my luck! “Actually Mr. Menuhin we had another meeting at that time,” I said. It was just at that moment – something you will all know— that the room went strangely quiet and the ambassador, his wife, dignitaries, even Bill Christie all tuned in to our conversation!
Well, I had started so I went on—“ yes, we had another meeting just before the concert (pause… while I contemplated that this whole thing could go either way…) I was standing at the urinal, you came in, stood next to me, I caught your eye and said -So, you do this too!”
There was a little gasp in the room. Menuhin looked very still and then after what seemed like an eternity, he threw his head back and exclaimed—“I’ve been telling that story for 20 years!”
There was much amusement, but from then on that night, he was mine—he only wanted to talk to me and it was one of the most memorable nights of my life.
April 9, 2009
