Yehudi Menuhin

Features the life and work of Dinu Lipatti. This book deals with Lipatti as pianist, composer and teacher. It includes many quotations from letters written by him, many musical examples, a list of works and two cadenzas for the Mozart Piano Concerto in C (K467). This publication is a valuable foundation from which to understand the complete devotion and musicianship of one of the most gifted pianists/composers the world has ever heard. Much of this book is devoted to understanding Dinu Lipatti's music, his teaching, composing and those important in his musical development.

Yehudi Menuhin shares with the reader his unique store of understanding about the violin, about how to exercise and practise, about the techniques of performance. His reflections on the nature and scope of his instrument are profoundly illuminating and his theories on interpretation particularly valuable. A section on the violinist as teacher/student contains a fascinating transcript of a lesson with Yehudi Menuhin, who also writes separately about the violinist as orchestral player, leader, chamber music player, recitalist and soloist. William Primrose writes the distinguished monograph on the viola and describes the instrument as ‘a violin with a college education’. He was an acknowledged technical master of the viola who, along with Lionel Tertis, was one of the finest exponents of this beautiful instrument of the 20th century. Denis Stevens, the British musicologist and specialist in early music, provides and interesting chapter on the history of the violin and looks in detail at the monumental challenge that is Bach’s Six Solos for Violin without Bass Accompaniment better known as the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin.