Yehudi Menuhin, Stéphane Grappelli
Yehudi Menuhin, Stéphane Grappelli
Genres: Classical, jazz, jazz collaboration
Stephane Grappelli & Michel Legrand
About Yehudi Menuhin, Stéphane Grappelli
- Yehudi Menuhin born to Russian Jewish parents, his sisters were concert pianist and human rights worker Hephzibah Menuhin and the pianist, painter, and poet Yaltah Menuhin. Menuhin began violin instruction at age three under violinist Sigmund Anker. His first solo violin performance was at the age of seven with the San Francisco Symphony in 1923. Menuhin later studied under the Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu, after which he made several recordings with his sister Hephzibah. He was also a student of Louis Persinger and Adolf Busch. He performed for allied soldiers during World War II, and went with the composer Benjamin Britten to perform for inmates of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, after its liberation in April 1945. He returned to Germany in 1947 to perform under the baton of conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler as an act of reconciliation, becoming the first Jewish musician to do so following the Holocaust. After building early success on richly romantic and tonally opulent performances, he experienced considerable physical and artistic difficulties caused by overwork during World War II as well as unfocused and unstructured early training. Careful practice and study combined with meditation and yoga helped him overcome many of these problems. His profound and considered musical interpretations are nearly universally acclaimed. When he finally started recording, he was known for practicing by deconstructing music phrases one note at a time. - Grappelli was born in Paris, France to Italian parents. Sent to an orphanage as a youth after his mother died when he was 4 and his father left to fight in World War I, Grappelli started his musical career busking on the streets of Paris and Montmartre with a violin . He began playing the violin at age 12, and attended the Conservatoire de Paris studying music theory, between 1924 and 1928. He continued to busk on the side until he gained fame in Paris as a violin virtuoso. He also worked as a silent film pianist while at the conservatory and played the saxophone and accordion. He called his piano "My Other Love" and released an album solely playing piano of the same name. His early fame came playing with the Quintette du Hot Club de France with Reinhardt, which disbanded in 1939 due to World War II.
Taken from Last.fm
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