'The Violin': Tribute to Menuhin

'The Violin': Tribute to Menuhin

The Violin
By Yehudi Menuhin
Flammarion, Paris, 1996
301 pages

JAKARTA (JP): To classical music lovers around the world, the
name Yehudi Menuhin is perhaps synonymous with the violin.
Menuhin, arguably the greatest violinist of this century, has
received various decorations and honors in recognition of his
life's work, and is also known for his illustrious humanitarian
work.

It is thus fitting that a man of his legend has chosen to
celebrate his 80th birthday with the launching of his own book
appropriately titled The Violin (translated from its original
French title La Legende du Violon) -- a magisterial book on the
craft that he has honed, perfected and represented for over 70
years.

In this panoramic and strikingly beautiful book, Menuhin
paints a compelling portrait of this enigmatic instrument,
detailing its origins, evolution, and meaning to the larger
world, and paying tribute to its creators, composers, teachers,
and artists. He introduces us to the abounding richness of the
violin's voice, whose appearance in ethnic music from the East
and the West, popular and folk music, classical and jazz, has
established its repertoire upon the interdependence of many
musical genres.

Supporting this magnificent journey across centuries,
cultures, and languages are lavish images of the violin in fine
art and precious documentary photography, much of which is
autobiographical. In the chapter on The Violin Player, several
paintings of Marc Chagall (1887-1985) adorn the pages, attesting
to the violin's central role in the open-air festivities of
village communities around Europe. Whether in Russia, Romania,
Norway, France, or Scotland, the violin was depicted very much as
an instrument of the people, with violinists shown roaming the
byways of the hamlet, and getting the guests to dance, drink and
socialize in a spirit of collective joy.

Menuhin's personal affinity with the populist origin of the
violin is displayed by his discussion of three cultivated
violinists who are " ... close to my heart because they ...
always remain half folk musicians, true to the nature of their
instrument and preserving their vital links that united them to
their people - to their land and to their dance." They are the
Basque composer and virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1904), the
self-taught Norwegian violinist of genius Ole Bull (1810-1880)
and Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), who has re-defined Hungarian
music.

It was not until the end of the 17th century that the violin
started to enter the serious classical repertoire, with composers
such as Vivaldi writing concerti especially for the violin.
Indeed, it has taken the solo standing violinist a long time to
gain social status, emerging from pure "entertainer" into a
fully-fledged literate musician who interprets great virtuoso
works for large seated audiences.

Menuhin also speaks reverentially of his most influential
teacher, Georges Enesco, the Romanian nobleman who was "the
incarnation of music itself". Having "lost his heart and soul" to
this man when he first heard him play, Menuhin describes him
almost as if he were God. While I am certainly no apologist for
artists, whose passion and admiration are often untranslatable to
the layman, inspiration is an integral part to the
internalization process.

Sentimentalism

Menuhin writes in a highly personalized style, and though his
prose is lucid and generally accessible to a wide audience, he
does have a propensity towards sentimentalism. What's more, the
book has an almost Zen-like quality in its general outlook and
delivery. However, this isn't necessarily bad.

After all, passion is somewhat expected from those writing
about a form of art which they "... cannot feel but that they
hold a means to expression which transcends matter and measure."
The famous ballerina Merle Park once wrote in the same
subjective, yet profoundly poetic vein in her part-
autobiographical guidebook to modern ballet.

In fact, it is the very personalized nature of this book that
renders it all the more meaningful.

When Menuhin speaks of giant composers such as Stravinsky,
Bartok, Elgar, and Shostakovitch, he talks about their passions,
obsessions and visions. When he speaks of his contemporaries such
as Fritz Kreisler, Ginette Neveu and David Oistrakh, he concedes
whole-heartedly to the sheer magnificence of their God-given
talents. When he speaks of his partners and accompanists, he is
full of love and adoration, and fully acknowledges their
indispensability. When he speaks of great conductors such as
Herbert von Karajan, Sir Thomas Beecham and Bruno Walter, he
tells stories of what makes them tick.

That Menuhin doesn't come off sounding as if he is floating in
a picture-perfect, imaginary world of his own is an achievement
in its own right. He doesn't gloss over issues and he can be
discerningly critical when he needs to be. Yet there is no
mockery, pontification, or self-complacency. His authority over
the subject is a natural product of a lifetime of bringing out
the best - and much more - of what an instrument can offer. It
is the kind of 'given' that makes one look at his photographs -
whether as a small prodigy in 1929, or as an old and seasoned
virtuoso practising in a Gypsy caravan in 1983 - as symbolic of
that authority, a presence without which the book would have been
devoid of soul.

Indeed, the increasing use of illustrations in many books on
the performing arts today is reflective of several widely
accepted phenomena, the most important being that a musical work
of art, like a multifaceted gem, always casts a multitude of
reflections of other art works of its time. The creation and
evolution of an instrument, also borne out of the artist's
reaction to the intellectual currents of his age, strongly
mirrors the visual images of its creator's times. Thus,
particularly illuminating in The Violin is Menuhin's ability to
trace the violin's origin back to the time the bow was invented.

On the walls of The Grotto of the Trois Freres in Ariege, a
primitive image of a half-man, half-beast character holds before
his face a convex object resembling a small bow. According to
Menuhin, the 15,000-year-old image suggests that what is
absorbing his attention is "the vibration of the string -- the
sound that it is producing, the oscillations it is making in the
silence".

Menuhin believes that the refined Guarnerius or Stradivarius
we know today has evolved from the vibration produced by a
pizzicato, or a plucked note, of this very first stringed
instrument. This form of bow, known today as the "musical" bow,
is apparently still found and widely used among many African
tribes.

Menuhin's fascination with the world at large -- exemplified
by his frequent travels and immortalized in a chapter called
Violins of the World -- is perhaps his strongest contribution to
his art. Whether he speaks of the Indian sarangi, the Chinese
four-stringed violin, the Berber rebab, or the Bulgarian gadulka,
his belief in the eternal interchange between cultures and
civilizations is evident throughout.

This approach effectively negates the prevalent myth that the
violin is the exclusive preserve of the western classical music
tradition.

In his later years, his cross-cultural projects with the
legendary classical Indian musician Ravi Shankar and the jazz
pianist Stephane Grappelli serve only to underline his long-held
view that music is only worth something if the two great musical
traditions -- improvisation and interpretation -- can intertwine
and borrow from each other.

In addition to being an authoritative guidebook to the
instrument, The Violin is as much a work of art as is the subject
it represents.

-- Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan