BOOK UNFINISHED JOURNEY: TWENTY YEARS LATER

Unfinished Journey: Twenty Years Later

by Yehudi Menuhin

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The thrilling memoirs of one of the great musical figures of our age-now in paperback.

Yehudi Menuhin is one of those rare men who is truly a legend in his own time. In rich and wonderfully candid detail, the great violinist tells the story of his life, recounting the defining moments of a crowded and fascinating journey that began when he captivated the world as a small boy. At seven he debuted in San Francisco, at eleven in Paris, at twelve in Berlin, with Bruno Walter. The great and the gifted were eager to embrace him, from Arturo Toscanini to Albert Einstein to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. Here Menuhin recalls his friendships and collaborations with Rudolf Serkin, Benjamin Britten, Jean Sibelius, Bla Bartk, Glenn Gould, Pablo Casals, Jascha Heifetz, Dmitry Shostakovich, and Gregor Piatigorsky. In some remarkable passages, Menuhin lets us enter the workshop of his craft, discussing the exact ways in which he made the opening of a Beethoven concerto or a Mozart sonata a part of himself.

Amazon.com Review
World-famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin revisits familiar ground in Unfinished Journey: Twenty Years Later, a revised and updated edition of his 1976 autobiography. A prodigy who made his concert debut at age 7, Menuhin later became a conductor and revered educator, founding several schools as well as an international foundation. Along the way he cultivated friendships with some of the most illustrious figures of his age; Bela Bartók, Benjamin Britten, and Pablo Casals all play prominent roles in Menuhin's life story, with luminaries such as Willa Cather, Charles de Gaulle, and Pope John Paul II making walk-on appearances. Played out against the turbulent landscape of the 20th century, Menuhin's story often reads like the best kind of fiction. After one performance, Einstein rushes across the stage to embrace the young violinist, crying, "Now I know there is a God in heaven!" Later, Menuhin and Britten play a poignant concert for recently liberated victims of the concentration camp Belsen, performing in the theater once reserved for their SS oppressors.

New to this edition are four chapters in which Menuhin describes the last 20 years of his life. He also airs the minutiae of his startlingly comprehensive worldview, skipping from the problems of foreign labor to the pleasures of sitz baths and stretching, all within the space of a few paragraphs. Philanthropist, teacher, and self-described "health crank," Menuhin has an opinion on every subject imaginable; taken together, these thoughts add up to a well-rounded portrait of a remarkable life.