Yaltah Menuhin
Encyclopedia
Yaltah Menuhin was an American-born British pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

, artist and poet.

Early life

Yaltah was born of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n Jewish parents in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, the youngest of three extraordinarily musical children. Her siblings were Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...

 and Hephzibah Menuhin
Hephzibah Menuhin
Hephzibah Menuhin was an American-Australian pianist and human rights campaigner. She was sister to the violinist Lord Menuhin and to the pianist, painter, and poet Yaltah Menuhin...

. Through her father Moshe Menuhin
Moshe Menuhin
Moshe Menuhin was born in Gomel to a distinguished, religious Jewish family. He was the great great grandson of Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Hassidism...

, a former rabbinical student and anti-Zionist writer, Menuhin was descended from a distinguished rabbinical dynasty. Yaltah was named after her mother, Marutha's, home town of Yalta
Yalta
Yalta is a city in Crimea, southern Ukraine, on the north coast of the Black Sea.The city is located on the site of an ancient Greek colony, said to have been founded by Greek sailors who were looking for a safe shore on which to land. It is situated on a deep bay facing south towards the Black...

 in Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...

. At the age of three, she became part of the rigorous regime already imposed on her siblings: the family employed tutors for the children, and Yaltah had her first piano lessons from the wife of the tutor in harmony and counterpoint.

She was taken to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 at the age of four when Yehudi and Hephzibah went to study there. Marcel Ciampi
Marcel Ciampi
Marcel Paul Maximin Ciampi was a French pianist and teacher. He held the longest tenure in the history of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and also became head of piano classes at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England...

, engaged to teach Hephzibah, initially refused to entertain the notion of teaching Yaltah at such a young age; however, Yaltah so impressed him with her spontaneous rendition of Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

's Kinderszenen
Kinderszenen
Kinderszenen , Opus 15, by Robert Schumann, is a set of thirteen pieces of music for piano written in 1838. In this work, Schumann provides us with his adult reminiscences of childhood. Schumann had originally written 30 movements for this work, but chose 13 for the final version...

, that he remarked "Mrs Menuhin's womb is a veritable conservatory" and agreed to take her on as well. Her taking piano lessons did not mean that her parents considered her - or for that matter, Hephzibah - to be capable of pursuing a career in music: Yaltah's mother in particular was firmly opposed to the idea that her daughters would follow in Yehudi's footsteps. Apart from Ciampi, she studied with Rudolf Serkin
Rudolf Serkin
Rudolf Serkin , was a Bohemian-born pianist.-Life and early career:Serkin was born in Eger, Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire to a Russian-Jewish family....

 in Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

, Armando Silvestri in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 and Carl Friedberg
Carl Friedberg
Carl Rudolf Hermann Friedberg was a German pianist and teacher.Friedberg studied piano with James Kwast and with Clara Schumann at the Hoch Conservatory, Frankfurt. He later became a teacher there and later at the Cologne Conservatory...

 in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

.

Career

One of Yaltah's earliest orchestral appearances was with Pierre Monteux
Pierre Monteux
Pierre Monteux was an orchestra conductor. Born in Paris, France, Monteux later became an American citizen.-Life and career:Monteux was born in Paris in 1875. His family was descended from Sephardi Jews who came to France in the wake of the Spanish Inquisition. He studied violin from an early age,...

 and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization...

, playing Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

's "Emperor" Concerto
Piano Concerto No. 5 (Beethoven)
The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto, was his last piano concerto. It was written between 1809 and 1811 in Vienna, and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven's patron and pupil...

. Over the years Yaltah performed a wide repertoire. She played a pivotal role in the careers of numerous young composers, particularly during her stay in Los Angeles in the 1950s. She had a great love of chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

 and performed the sonata literature of the violin, viola and cello, as well as works for larger groups. Yaltah gave many first performances of works by Erich Zeisl
Erich Zeisl
Erich Zeisl was an Austrian-born Jewish American composer.-Life and music:Born to a middle class Jewish family in Vienna, Zeisl's musical precocity enabled him to gain a place at the Vienna State Academy when he was 14, at which age his first song was published...

, George Antheil
George Antheil
George Antheil was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor. A self-described "Bad Boy of Music", his modernist compositions amazed and appalled listeners in Europe and the US during the 1920s with their cacophonous celebration of mechanical devices.Returning permanently to...

, Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek was an Austrian of Czech origin and, from 1945, American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music...

, Frank Martin
Frank Martin (composer)
Frank Martin was a Swiss composer, who lived a large part of his life in the Netherlands.-Childhood and youth:...

, Louis Gruenberg
Louis Gruenberg
-Life and career:He was born near Brest-Litovsk , to Abe Gruenberg and Klara Kantarovitch. His family emigrated to the United States when he was a few months old. His father worked as a violinist in New York City...

, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an Italian composer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for that instrument. In 1939 he migrated to the United States and became a film composer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next...

 and Walter Piston
Walter Piston
Walter Hamor Piston Jr., , was an American composer of classical music, music theorist and professor of music at Harvard University whose students included Leroy Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, and Elliott Carter....

. She recorded for Everest, EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

, Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...

 Gesellschaft, SPA, Music Library and EMI-World Record Club.

Yaltah's tours took her from Alaska to New Zealand; from Texas to Switzerland. She appeared in duo recitals with the cellists Gabor Rejto, George Neikrug, Guy Fallot and Felix Schmidt; violinist Israel Baker; violists Michael Mann and Paul Doktor
Paul Doktor
Paul Doktor was a notable violist and orchestra conductor.The son of singer-pianist Georgine and violist Karl Doktor, at the age of five, Paul began violin studies with his father, and received his diploma from the State Academy of Music in 1938...

, and with Joel Ryce
Joel Ryce-Menuhin
Joel Ryce-Menuhin was an American pianist, who later became a Jungian psychologist in private practice.-Biography:...

 in duo-piano with whom she appeared widely in recital, in double concertos, and in television specials in Paris, London and New York. She married Ryce in 1960, and the marriage was a happy one. The Menuhin-Ryce duo won the coveted Harriet Cohen International Music Award
Harriet Cohen International Music Award
The Harriet Cohen International Music Award was founded in 1951 by Sir Arnold Bax and others in 1951, in honour of the British pianist Harriet Cohen.- 1950s :1951*Philippe Entremont – Piano Medal1954*Ingrid Haebler – Beethoven Medal1955...

 in 1962, in a programme largely devoted to works by Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

 for four hands. In 1966, they performed the Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 Double Piano Concerto under the baton of Yehudi Menuhin in Gstaad
Gstaad
Gstaad is a village in the German-speaking section of the Canton of Berne in southwestern Switzerland. Part of the municipality of Saanen, Gstaad is known as one of the most exclusive ski resorts in the world....

 and other venues in Europe. Yaltah and Joel Ryce were soloists in Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

' The Carnival of the Animals
The Carnival of the Animals
Le carnaval des animaux is a musical suite of fourteen movements by the French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The orchestral work has a duration between 22 and 30 minutes.-History:...

for the BBC. In 1967, Yaltah and Joel recorded the entire duet repertoire of Mozart in America for Everest Records, the first time that this was done by one team of artists.

Yaltah performed regularly as both a soloist and a chamber player. In 1951 she made a joint New York debut with the violinist Israel Baker. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, she enrolled at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

 of Music in New York using the assumed name of "Kate Davis". Nobody recognised this pianist even when she proved to be so talented that she was put in charge of teaching other students.

The highlights of Yaltah's career include a performance for Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

 at Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it...

 in 1973, when she played the Schubert Notturno with Yehudi and Ross Pople
Ross Pople
Ross Pople is a New Zealand-born British conductor. He is the principal conductor of the. He has worked with Yehudi Menuhin, Clifford Curzon, David Oistrakh, Kentner, George Malcolm, Sir Adrian Boult, Rudolf Kempe, Benjamin Britten, Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki, Michael Tippett, George...

; the Mozart Double Piano Concerto with Hephzibah for the Willa Cather
Willa Cather
Willa Seibert Cather was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours , a novel set during World War I...

 centenary celebrations in America, and a recital with Joel Ryce at Queen Elizabeth Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, United Kingdom that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival...

, London, when they played Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Her charity performances included evenings for the British Red Cross
British Red Cross
The British Red Cross Society is the United Kingdom branch of the worldwide impartial humanitarian organisation the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The society was formed in 1870, and is a registered charity with over 31,000 volunteers and 2,600 staff. At the heart of their work...

; the Organisation of Rehabilitation Training (ORT), Geneva; the Goulston Foundation, London; Pentonville Prison
Pentonville (HM Prison)
HM Prison Pentonville is a Category B/C men's prison, operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service. Pentonville Prison is not actually within Pentonville itself, but is located further north, on the Caledonian Road in the Barnsbury area of the London Borough of Islington, in inner-North London,...

 and for Friends of the Rose, Geneva. Her recorded favourites include the "family" recording of the Mozart Triple Concerto (Yaltah, Hephzibah and Jeremy at the piano, with Yehudi conducting) and the four-hand piano duets of Mozart with Joel.

Yaltah was a co-founder in 1965 (with Stefan Askenase
Stefan Askenase
Stefan Askenase was a Polish-born Belgian classical pianist and pedagogue.-Biography:Askenase was born in Lemberg. He studied with Theodor Pollak, a professor and director of the Ludwik Marek School of Music in Lemberg. Then with Emil von Sauer, a pupil of Liszt, at the Vienna Academy of Music...

 and Johannes Wasmuth) and director of "Arts and Music", an international non-profit social project for the benefit of young artists and the arts in general. Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau was an internationally acclaimed French actor and mime most famous for his persona as Bip the Clown.-Early years:...

 and Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes.-Biography:...

 were among its strongest supporters. "Arts and Music" - still active to this day - was housed in a beautiful old railway station at Rolandseck
Rolandseck
Rolandseck is a borough of Remagen in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.The place consists almost entirely of villas and is a favorite summer resort. Crowning the vine-clad hills behind it lie the ruins of the castle, a picturesque ivy-covered arch, whence a fine view is obtained of the Siebengebirge...

, near Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

. She took a very keen interest in youth orchestras and played with the Brighton Youth Orchestra, also undertaking tours in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 with Aelodau'r Gerddorfa, the all-Wales Youth Orchestra.

Lifestyle, death and legacy

A gifted linguist, Yaltah wrote a poem each day of the year in one of six languages. In 1939 an anthology of her poetry, entitled Malgré L'Espace, was published privately. The anthology is currently held by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
The Harry Ransom Center is a library and archive at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the United States and Europe. The Ransom Center houses 36 million literary manuscripts, 1 million rare books, 5 million photographs, and more...

 at the University of Texas
University of Texas System
The University of Texas System encompasses 15 educational institutions in Texas, of which nine are academic universities and six are health institutions. The system is headquartered in Austin and has a total enrollment of over 190,000 students...

.

Yaltah lived under the shadow of her more famous brother and sister; in spite of the fact that many, Yehudi included, considered her to be the most talented of the three Menuhins, she never quite managed to match the careers Yehudi and Hephzibah had. This did not lead to bitterness on Yaltah's part; she completely and unequivocally worshipped her siblings, and remained devoted to - even slightly in awe of - them for all her life.

Much like her brother and sister, Yaltah was a wonderful facilitator, bringing together people from all walks of life, musically and in friendship. Yaltah was surrounded by people from all walks of life, young and old, and her home was a haven to everybody. In Yehudi's own words: "Yaltah is a ministering angel, handing out remedies, crutches, comfort to the ailing who come to her door, reaping the rewards in kindness and gratitude that life has otherwise denied her.".

Yaltah died at her home in London on 9 June 2001, just a few days after giving her final recital at the Orwell Park School, Suffolk, of which she was Honorary Patron.

Memorial Fund

A memorial fund in Yaltah's name is maintained by Iain and Charlotte Phillips. Based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the primary objective of the fund is to help develop the talents of young pianists who have already given proof of their outstanding musical ability and promise in the practice of their art, by means of awards and bursaries. The distinguished French pianist, Cécile Ousset
Cécile Ousset
Cécile Ousset is a French pianist.Cécile Ousset was born in Tarbes, France, and gave her first recital at the age of five, subsequently studying at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 10 with Marcel Ciampi where, aged only fourteen, she was awarded first prize in the piano graduation class of...

, is Honorary Patron of the Yaltah Menuhin Memorial Fund.

The Fund provides one of the prizes of the annual Artscape National Youth Music Competition, which ranks as one of South Africa's most prestigious competitions. The Competition is open to pianists and other instrumentalists between the ages of 14 and 19 and is held in Cape Town. The Yaltah Menuhin Award - a cash prize and medal - will be given annually to the best pianist at the Competition.

The first Artscape/Yaltah Menuhin Award was conferred on Melissa Tu (17) from Cape Town, who was also declared the Overall Winner of the 2010 Artscape Competition, in addition to which she won the Piano Category Prize.

Melissa was born in New Zealand. At age five, she moved to Johannesburg with her parents and there studied piano with Pauline Nossel and violin with Professor Walter Mony. She won a number of prizes at the Johannesburg Music Festival, including best all-round pianist and best concerto performance. When Melissa was eleven, she moved back to their hometown of Taipei, Taiwan, where she continued her piano lessons with a Miss Lee. She currently resides in Cape Town where she attends the American International School. Melissa studies piano with Professor Francois du Toit and violin with Professor Farida Bacharova, both of the South African College of Music
South African College of Music
The South African College of Music, abbreviated as SACM, is a department of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Cape Town. It is located on the University's Lower Campus in Rondebosch, Cape Town.-Study opportunities:...

.

Once again, the winner of the 2011 Artscape/Yaltah Menuhin Award is also the Overall Winner of the Artscape Competition: 19–year old Eben Wagenstroom is currently a first year student at the South African College of Music
South African College of Music
The South African College of Music, abbreviated as SACM, is a department of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Cape Town. It is located on the University's Lower Campus in Rondebosch, Cape Town.-Study opportunities:...

 (University of Cape Town) where he studies with Professor Franklin Larey. Eben has won numerous prizes and awards at several competitions, examinations and eisteddfods. In 2007 he made his debut with the Cape Philharmonic Orches­tra and attended the Adamant Music School
Adamant Music School
The Adamant Music School is a piano school located in Adamant, Vermont.Founded in 1942 by pianist Edwine Behre, journalist/poet Alice Mary Kimball and photographer Harry Godfrey, the school has operated continuously as a summer retreat to some of the world's most accomplished and respected pianists...

 (USA) in 2008 and 2009 on a full scholarship where he performed in numerous concerts. In 2010 Eben performed at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in an anniversary concert of the Adamant Music School.

External links

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