The Man

"When I began it was pure instinct. I had the knack, the gift, the will."

Yehudi Menuhin

"I was, in some ways, the pupil of Persinger’s abandoned dreams."

Yehudi Menuhin

"The lad, looking smaller than ever in his vast surroundings, filled them with his personality and his genius. The tremendous audience, much as it knew what to expect, was amazed and inflamed at his performance."

Alexander Fried

"Bach he advised me to play strictly, for he said that however strong your emotional impulse may be, it should never destroy the basic pace nor twist the overall form of the piece from its architectural shape."

Yehudi on his teacher, Enesco

"The way that boy plays my concerto is amazing."

Elgar to Delius

"I did not think that music could be played like that until long after the composer was dead"

Bartók

"We request that you definitely cancel all arrangements for Menuhin concerts up to and including 13 October. His presence in Europe with fighting troops at this critical juncture of the war is essential in its effect upon their morale and most important."

General Eisenhower cables from Supreme Headquarters

"I had dreamt of conducting an orchestra since the age of eleven."

Yehudi Menuhin

"Precisely because I played in Berlin I wish to play in Israel. As to threats, they cannot put me off. If there are people who wish to hear me, I’ll come and play."

Cable from Menuhin to the Israeli impresario, Baruch Gillon.

"It has taken some years for the work of Bartók to command the respect and reverence they now receive. … Little known or unknown works have in my experience always acted as a stimulus to artist, audience and connoisseur alike."

Article on new music, London "Sunday Times"

"To be present, as I have been, at a ‘chamber music’ recital by Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, each goading the other to new heights of invention, is an experience more magical than almost any in the world. One is in the presence of creation."

Yehudi Menuhin

"People would come to me when I was walking in the streets of Moscow and shove a little piece of paper in my hand surreptitiously, just telling me how much they appreciated it."

Yehudi Menuhin

"Anything that one wants to do really and one loves doing, one must do every day. It should be as easy to the artist and as natural as flying is to a bird. And you can't imagine a bird saying, ‘Well, I’m tired today. I’m not going to fly.’ "

Yehudi Menuhin

"with an excellent black choir. Before the audience would let us leave, the choir broke quite spontaneously into some of their own traditional songs"

Yehudi Menuhin