Hephzibah Menuhin

Presenter0:00

This is the

Speaker 10:01

B B C

Speaker 10:03

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive. This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it is the only version we have. The recording didn't contain the guests' eight music choices, so we've rebuilt the original show by using discs from the BBC Gramophone library. For Wrights' reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:25

Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Disc's website.

Speaker 10:30

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen fifty eight.

Presenter0:42

Desert Island Dens.

Presenter0:52

Each week, a well-known person is asked the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which eight gramophone records would you choose to have with you, assuming, of course, that you also had a gramophone?

Presenter1:04

As usual, the week's castaway is introduced by Roy Plumley.

Presenter1:08

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

Presenter1:10

I'm welcoming ashore onto our desert island this week a distinguished concert pianist Hepsey vaunt Menohen.

Presenter1:15

Well, Miss Menlin, how do you react to the thought of being marooned on a desert island?

Hephzibah Menuhin1:19

I don't like it at all. I much prefer people to almost anything else that one can have on earth, and the most horrifying prospect is not that I might run out of music on this desert island, but that there aren't going to be any people with whom to enjoy it.

Presenter1:32

No, all you've got are just eight records to keep you company. Do you play the grammophone a lot?

Hephzibah Menuhin1:37

No, I never play the gr uh gramophone at all, if I can help it. Ma unless I'm listening to new records, but I don't like playing records over that I've already heard, because they irritate me, and I like a live performance so much better than a canned or a pickled performance, however perfect.

Presenter1:51

Yes. Oh, you're just going to be irritated, I'm afraid, on this island with eight pickled performances. How did you set about choosing them?

Hephzibah Menuhin1:58

Well, in the first place, I chose Bach. I chose a fugue out of the well-tempered clavier, which Schumann referred to as the daily bread of the musician, or the man who aspired to be a musician, mainly because it's the kind of music which can be studied and studied and never runs out of architectural wonders. Yeah.

Speaker 42:15

Yeah.

Hephzibah Menuhin2:15

And it's going to be played by Rosalind Turet.

Hephzibah Menuhin2:19

And uh I I suppose that any one of the others might have done ju just as well. It was very difficult to pick one out of the forty eight.

Presenter2:25

Yes, which have you chosen?

Hephzibah Menuhin2:27

I have chosen this B minor one, number twenty-four.

Presenter3:30

Part of that bark fuel to start with, what's your next choice?

Hephzibah Menuhin3:33

My Next Choice is a song by Schubert.

Hephzibah Menuhin3:36

And this has two things to qualify it. One is that it's written by Schubert, who was a man who would have done very, very well on a desert island because he asked for practically nothing to live. All he needed was something to write his tunes down on as they came to his head. Sometimes he wrote them on tablecloths in coffeehouses in Vienna when he couldn't pay for his coffee.

Hephzibah Menuhin3:56

And I expect he would have written these down on the desert island in the sand quite happily and it wouldn't have mattered at all. He was very modest and very sweet, and I think he would remind one of how very little a human being really needs to get along with, basically.

Hephzibah Menuhin4:10

Well now this is sung by Ilmgad Zayfried who is also one of the nicest people I know.

Hephzibah Menuhin4:15

And that I think will come through as you hear her singing the song called Nacht und Treume, which means Night and Dreams.

Speaker 44:42

Oh, sing first.

Speaker 44:46

Yeah.

Presenter5:20

Ms. Manuin, when you were born, I believe your elder brother Yehudi had already started learning the violin, which he did at the age of three, so there's no need for me to ask a usual question, was there a lot of music in your home when you were a child?

Hephzibah Menuhin5:31

Yes, there always was. I could never remember a time when there wasn't a sound of music somewhere in the background.

Presenter5:37

When did you start at the piano?

Hephzibah Menuhin5:38

I started when I must have been very, very young, because I can't remember when I started.

Hephzibah Menuhin5:43

But I do know that when I was um about five years old I could already read music quite competently and play I presume competently too. And when I was eight I gave my first recital in San Francisco.

Speaker 45:54

Mm-hmm.

Hephzibah Menuhin5:54

and thought then that I would never have to practise again. I thought I'd made the grade at that stage.

Presenter6:00

It's practically unique for a family to have three children with such great musical talent, uh you and Yehudi and your sister Yalto. Do you think it can be accounted for by heredity?

Hephzibah Menuhin6:09

No, I don't think it should be accounted for by heredity. Um my brother is one of these creatures that springs up once or a few times in a lifetime. But I think the rest of us are just the kind of people who, subjected to the same sort of influences, would have probably produced the same sort of um a fluency in the making of music. And I think I can prove that by the fact that in earlier ages, when music was very much a part of certain people's education and they made a lot of music and heard a lot of music, music became to them a sort of a language.

Speaker 46:39

Which

Hephzibah Menuhin6:39

which they spoke quite easily. And nowadays I'm glad to see that it's coming back more and more and that more children and more schools are being taught to make music in their own fashion, in their own way, which is so much more important, I think, than just listening to it.

Presenter6:53

Yes. While Yehodi was was touring the world as a as a child prodigy, you were busy at your piano studies at terminal. It was in San Francisco, was it?

Hephzibah Menuhin7:01

In San Francisco and then later on in Switzerland where he was studying with Bush and later on in Paris where he was studying with VNESCO.

Presenter7:07

Did you take it for granted, as a child, that you were going to be a concert performer, too?

Hephzibah Menuhin7:11

I didn't take that so much for granted. What I did take for granted was the fact that I would probably always be somehow actively associated with the making of music.

Presenter7:19

Mhm. And you made your debut at eight.

Hephzibah Menuhin7:21

Eight, this

Presenter7:22

Let's break off there and have your third break off. What's that going to be?

Hephzibah Menuhin7:25

Good. My third record is the quintet by Bloch for piano and strings, and it's really the last page of it, which is the most meditative and

Presenter7:25

Yeah.

Hephzibah Menuhin7:33

heavenly kind of spreading sound. And uh uh I like to think of Bloch as living on a desert beach of his own in a place called Agarty Beach in Oregon where he does all his finest thinkings. He's always sought out rather the desert places because when he was younger he used to climb mountaintops. Now that he can't climb mountaintops any more he sits on his beach and composes still.

Presenter7:55

Well let's hear the end of that winter.

Presenter8:59

The closing passage of the Bloch Quintet for Piano and Strings.

Presenter9:02

You told us you made your debut on your own at the age of eight. You made a second debut some years later with your brother, didn't you?

Hephzibah Menuhin9:08

Yes, when I was fourteen we played our first sonata concert together in Paris. That year we played three concerts, one in Paris, one in London, one in New York.

Presenter9:16

Hmm.

Hephzibah Menuhin9:16

and the following year a few more, and so it went on.

Presenter9:19

Yes. You and Yehuti were were hailed as a a phenomenal partnership.

Presenter9:23

How do you match temperamentally? Do you think you're very different in temperament?

Hephzibah Menuhin9:27

Well, we love each other very much, and I think we understand each other very much, with only this difference, that he's very, very much nicer than I am. He's rather a pure kind of person.

Hephzibah Menuhin9:37

and a person with a wonderful capacity for single-mindedness and dedication.

Speaker 49:41

Hmm.

Hephzibah Menuhin9:42

And uh I just think he he's always so terribly kind. He never has any unkind feelings or expressions about people, not that I've noticed in any case.

Hephzibah Menuhin9:50

and to be with him is always rather something that makes you proud of being a human being.

Presenter9:55

How much opportunity do you have to play together nowadays?

Hephzibah Menuhin9:58

Nowadays very much more than we've had up till now because I've been living in Australia for many years and so we only met on rare occasions. But now since we've come to live in England we see each other much more often and we hope to play together more often.

Presenter10:11

Good.

Presenter10:12

Well, let's have record number four.

Hephzibah Menuhin10:15

Well now record number four is the Archduke Trio by Beethoven which is one of the most beautiful piano trios in existence and which is most beautifully played by Heifitz, Feuermann and Rubenstein. And Beethoven, one must never forget however much he lived amongst people, lived in a constant desert, in a desert of isolation due to his deafness. And yet in spite of all this he managed to convey a sense of justice and a sense of passionate concern for human beings which came through in his music, even the music that he composed which he was doomed never to hear.

Hephzibah Menuhin10:47

with his outer air in any case.

Presenter10:49

Which part of the work would you like to hear?

Hephzibah Menuhin10:51

The very opening, which starts on such a note of serenity that I feel however irritated I might become by my own company on the desert island, I think it would restore me for a while anyway.

Presenter12:03

The opening passage of the Archduke.

Presenter12:07

Miss Menniwin, you have great faith in the the healing power of music, haven't you? You play whenever you can to people in hospitals for the mentally sick.

Hephzibah Menuhin12:13

It isn't so much a matter of playing to people in hospitals as a matter of encouraging them to make their own music because the healing properties of music I think reside not so much in the entertainment qualities of music as in the fact of having a common language wherein one can express oneself without the in inhibiting qualities that make people sometimes worry about what words they're going to choose and what things they're going to talk about to one another.

Speaker 412:38

Wow.

Speaker 112:38

Yeah.

Hephzibah Menuhin12:39

In Australia we had a great deal of experience with music in a particular mental hospital where I started first training a choir and then afterwards joined the ranks in the choir myself and we rehearsed this aveverum for about six months, this piece of Mozart which we're going to play for you now.

Hephzibah Menuhin12:56

And at the end of those six months, people who had been so ill and so disturbed that they really had broken off diplomatic relations with the world and never spoke to anyone at all, many of these people had become well enough to

Speaker 413:05

Menu

Hephzibah Menuhin13:08

want to speak to others and to take part in other gatherings that were more social in nature.

Speaker 413:14

Mm.

Hephzibah Menuhin13:14

But certainly the the great improvement can be ascribed to the group experience of making music together. And it is something that ought to be borne in mind by people who would like to use music as a means of teaching others. One teaches them not only music, but one teaches them to enjoy life through music, which is the main object of it.

Presenter13:32

Yes. And who would you like to sing Arvi Verum on the record you've chosen?

Hephzibah Menuhin13:37

Well, unfortunately, as we haven't a recording of our choir at Callan Park at the Mental Hospital singing this piece, we have Robert Shaw chorale from the United States singing it, and they sing it most beautifully.

Speaker 413:54

Okay, so

Speaker 414:07

The glory of the Lord Jesus.

Presenter14:44

Mozart's Ave Verum sung by the Robert Shaw Choral.

Presenter14:48

What next?

Hephzibah Menuhin14:50

Now we are having the symphony number one in C minor by Brahms, which is something that I used to listen to a lot when I lived on a lonely sheep station in Australia.

Hephzibah Menuhin14:58

I would have liked to see Brahms on a desert island. He would have driven himself frantic because

Hephzibah Menuhin15:03

He he was so rude and so antisocial that I think he rather enjoyed people so that he might be able to be rude to them.

Hephzibah Menuhin15:10

and having nobody on a desert island wouldn't have suited him at all. Yes, he was once at a party, and said to his host upon leaving

Speaker 415:13

Yeah, here.

Presenter15:14

Frustrating.

Hephzibah Menuhin15:17

If there's any one of your guests I've failed to insult, I do beg his forgiveness.

Presenter15:22

Now which part of the Brahms number one are we going to hear?

Hephzibah Menuhin15:23

Yeah.

Hephzibah Menuhin15:24

We're now the wonderful part where the French horn, followed by the flute, come in, singing this heavenly, noble, majestic tune, which would also, I feel, reconcile one to one's lot on a desert island.

Presenter16:41

Part of the last movement of Brahm's first symphony played by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer.

Presenter16:47

And now, uh Miss Menowin, this is a question that has to be asked. How practical a person are you, and how do you think you'd be able to look after yourself on a desert island?

Hephzibah Menuhin16:55

Well, it it takes all the modern conveniences of the modern kitchen to enable me to get along in the very heart of civilization, and I think that in a desert island I should be absolutely sunk.

Presenter17:02

And I

Presenter17:05

Never g never camped out.

Hephzibah Menuhin17:06

Yeah.

Hephzibah Menuhin17:07

No, I've never camped out in my life. I think if if I knew that the roots were edible, I suppose I would eventually try them all out, and if they didn't upset my tummy, I suppose I should live on those. I wouldn't know how to light a fire. I should probably eat them raw, and later on rationalize the fact and say I thought it was good for me.

Speaker 417:17

Totaroo

Presenter17:24

Yeah.

Presenter17:27

Uh can you fish?

Hephzibah Menuhin17:28

No, and I wouldn't fish or hunt or do anything that um that implied death for some poor creature, if I could possibly avoid it.

Presenter17:36

Could you build a shelter?

Hephzibah Menuhin17:38

I don't think so. I think I would follow the example of the Australian Aborigine and probably dig a hole.

Presenter17:43

It's a very, very sad picture of you sitting in a hole eating roots. Let's pass on.

Hephzibah Menuhin17:47

I'm still hoping that you will make it unnecessary for me to spend any time on this desert island.

Presenter17:49

Sorry.

Presenter17:51

I think we're better. Let's move on to record number seven.

Hephzibah Menuhin17:54

Yeah.

Hephzibah Menuhin17:55

Well now I've chosen a piece by Vivaldi which is called Serenata Atre, which means serenade for three, and it's all about extremely civilised people pretending to be uncivilised shepherds and shepherdesses. My main reason for choosing it is because it has a very happy personal association and I feel that I should allow myself at least one bit of music that would remind me of the happier days of my life. And this would really act as an antidepressant I think, as you will probably agree upon hearing this delicious music.

Speaker 418:59

Yeah.

Speaker 419:00

Uh

Speaker 419:08

Yeah.

Speaker 419:10

Oh, yellow horn.

Speaker 419:14

Joy and Lord

Presenter19:19

Yes, that's delightful music. The singer was Amilkare Blaffar.

Presenter19:24

And now we come to your last one. What's that going to be?

Hephzibah Menuhin19:26

My last one is going to be the violin unaccompanied sonata by Bartok which he wrote specially for my brother and it's going to be played by my brother too.

Hephzibah Menuhin19:35

Music is usually composed by people who live on a kind of a desert island of their own and I think it speaks most eloquently to other people who live on their own little private desert island. And Bartok was one of the greatest of all composers. The fact that he's been dead for a while, a few years now, probably accounts for his inordinately fast-spreading fame. During his lifetime he didn't enjoy any fame whatsoever, certainly not in America, where he went to as a voluntary exile, having refused to live any longer in Hungary because he identified himself with the Jewish composers whose works were no longer performed under the Nazis. He called himself a Jew, although he was not one.

Hephzibah Menuhin20:15

And he was a wonderful man. He was a sensitive and irritable and strong-minded sort of person who fought and wrote and thought all the time in terms of justice for the creature, whether it was a four-legged creature or whether it was a human creature. He was a very great friend of my brother's, a very great admirer of his, and this was certainly a mutual case of admiration. And this sonata is a very long piece. I wish we could play it all, but I thought we would play perhaps only just the opening of the chacona, which is as noble, I think, an opening as Bach's chacon opening for the violin.

Presenter21:52

Well, there you are, eight records, Miss Menwin. You've got one more choice to make. Every castaway is allowed to take one luxury onto the island. What are you going to take?

Hephzibah Menuhin22:01

Well, as I'm not allowed the luxury of human companionship, I think the one thing that I ought to take along is something uh on which I could sharpen my mind, because I'm so frightened that a mind without food for thought might eventually disintegrate altogether or rust, and then wouldn't be worth meeting up with other people again. So I think perhaps I should take away a Chinese alphabet and try and learn it, a Chinese um grammar, a collection of of um letters. I believe there are two hundred and eighteen of them, and it would take me a fair while to memorize all those and learn to write them. That make the time speed past, don't you think so?

Presenter22:32

That makes

Presenter22:34

Yes. And as Chinese is i it's not much use being able to read and write Chinese without speaking it, I think we'll let you have a a set of Chinese language records as well. What about?

Hephzibah Menuhin22:42

Oh, that's very generous of you. Spare time, you were generous of you with me.

Presenter22:45

Eyonocyta take a piano.

Hephzibah Menuhin22:47

No, no, I couldn't think of anything sadder than having to practise, or being in a position to practise all on my own, for my own non amusement.

Presenter22:54

Oh, thank you, Hepzabar Manuhin, for letting say your choice of Desert Island discs.

Hephzibah Menuhin22:58

Well, I hope we meet in a more sociable environment next time.

Presenter23:01

I hope so too. Goodbye, everyone.

Hephzibah Menuhin23:02

Goodbye.

Speaker 123:11

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter23:20

This is the B B C.