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The Man

Timeline

1939 - 1956: War and Peace

Yehudi Menuhin plays to wounded soldiers, 1944

Menuhin plays to
wounded soldiers, 1944

Yehudi Menuhin with his sister Hephzibah

Yehudi with his
sister Hephzibah

Yehudi Menuhin with his accompanist and friend Adolph Baller

Yehudi with his accompanist
and friend, Adolph Baller,
playing for troops in
the Aleutians, 1944

1939
War in Europe
Birth of daughter Zamira
First tour of South America
1940
Australia: concerts and recordings with Hephzibah
Birth of son Krov
1941/2
US enters war; Yehudi is deferred, plays for troops and makes second tour of Latin America
1943
First wartime visit to Britain
Meets and plays for Bartók and commissions solo sonata
“I did not think that music could be played like that until long after the composer was dead”
Bartók
1944
Tour of military bases in Alaska and Aleutian Islands
Plays for Pacific Ocean battle troops in Hawaii
(Altogether plays over 500 concerts for Allied troops during Second World War)
Meets Diana Gould, British dancer and actress, during second wartime visit to Britain
Plays in Antwerp, Brussels and Paris shortly after their liberation
Premičre of Bartók’s Sonata for solo violin in New York, with Bartók in the audience
“That I should have evoked this magnificent music, is a source of infinite satisfaction to me.”
Yehudi Menuhin
1945
Plays for inaugural United Nations assembly in San Francisco
With Benjamin Britten plays for survivors of concentration camps at Belsen
First visit to Moscow, friendship with David Oistrakh
1946
Records Bartók’s Violin Concerto No.2 with Antal Dorati
Conducts the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in a semi-public rehearsal of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger prelude
“I had dreamt of conducting an orchestra since the age of eleven.”
Yehudi Menuhin
1947
Records Beethoven concerto with Furtwängler
Divorce from Nola and marriage to Diana Gould in London
1948
Birth of son Gerard
1949
World premičre of Walton's Violin and Piano Sonata (commissioned by YM) in Zurich
1950
Challenges apartheid in South Africa
First visit to Israel, despite threats against him
1951
Discovers yoga
First concert tour of Japan
Birth of son Jeremy
1952
Concert tour of India in aid of Famine Relief; hears Ravi Shankar and meets yoga teacher BKS Iyengar
1954
Holds first violin classes, at Nadia Boulanger's Academy in Fontainebleau
1955
Death of newborn son Alexis
Leaves US to make his home in Europe
1956
Plays at Johannesburg Festival, his last South African visit until the end of apartheid