SHIPPMENT : Shipp worldwide via registered airmail is $ 29 . Will be sent in a special protective rigid sealed package.  Handling around 5-10 days after payment. 

Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE (22 April 1916 – 12 March 1999) was an American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985. He is often considered to be one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. Early life and career Yehudi Menuhin with Bruno Walter (1931). According to Henry A. Murray, Menuhin wrote: "Actually, I was gazing in my usual state of being half absent in my own world and half in the present. I have usually been able to 'retire' in this way. I was also thinking that my life was tied up with the instrument and would I do it justice?" (Yehudi Menuhin, personal communication, 31 October 1993) Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City, United States, to Jewish parents from what is now Belarus. His sisters were the concert pianist and human rights worker Hephzibah Menuhin and the pianist, painter, and poet Yaltah Menuhin. Through his father Moshe Menuhin, a former rabbinical student and anti-Zionist writer, Menuhin was descended from a distinguished rabbinical dynasty. Menuhin began violin instruction at age four under violinist Sigmund Anker; his parents had wanted Louis Persinger to be his teacher, but Persinger refused.[1] Menuhin displayed extraordinary talents at an early age. His first solo violin performance was at the age of seven with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1923. Persinger then agreed to take Menuhin as a student. When the Menuhins went to Paris, Persinger suggested Yehudi go to his own teacher, Eugène Ysa e. He did have one lesson with Ysa e, but did not like his method or the fact that he was very old.[1] Instead, he went to the Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu, after which he made several recordings with his sister Hephzibah. He was also a student of Adolf Busch. In 1929 he played in Berlin, under Bruno Walter's baton, three concerti by Bach, Brahms and Beethoven. In 1932 he recorded Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor for HMV in London, with the composer himself conducting, and between 1934 and 1936 he made the first integral recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. World War II musician Yehudi Menuhin performed for Allied soldiers during World War II, and accompanied English composer Benjamin Britten to perform for inmates of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, after its liberation in April 1945. He returned to Germany in 1947 to perform with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler as an act of reconciliation, becoming the first Jewish musician to do so following the Holocaust. He said to critics within the Jewish community that he wanted to rehabilitate Germany's music and spirit. After building early success, he experienced considerable physical and artistic difficulties caused by overwork during the war as well as unfocused and unstructured early training (reportedly he said "I watched myself on film and realized that for 30 years I'd been holding the bow wrong").[citation needed] Careful practice and study combined with meditation and yoga helped him overcome many of these problems. When he finally resumed recording, he was known for practising by analyzing music phrases one note at a time. He and Louis Kentner (brother-in-law of his wife, Diana) gave the first performance of William Walton's Violin Sonata, at Zürich on 30 September 1949. Menuhin continued to perform to an advanced age, becoming known for profound interpretations of an austere quality, as well as for his explorations of music outside the classical realm. World interactions Menuhin credited German philosopher Constantin Brunner with providing him with "a theoretical framework within which I could fit the events and experiences of life".[2] In 1952 Menuhin met and befriended the influential yogi B. K. S. Iyengar before he had come to prominence outside India. Menuhin arranged for Iyengar to teach abroad in London, Switzerland, Paris and elsewhere. This was the first time that many Westerners had been exposed to yoga. Following his role as a member of the awards jury at the 1955 Queen Elisabeth Music Competition, Menuhin secured a Rockefeller Foundation grant for the financially strapped Grand Prize winner at the event, Argentine violinist Alberto Lysy. Menuhin made Lysy his first and only personal student, and the two toured extensively throughout the concert halls of Europe. The young protégé later established the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad, in his honor.[3] Menuhin made several recordings with the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who had been criticized for conducting in Germany during the Nazi era. Menuhin defended Furtwängler, noting that the conductor had helped a number of Jewish musicians to flee Nazi Germany. In 1957, he founded the Menuhin Festival Gstaad in Gstaad, Switzerland. In 1962, he established the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey. He also established the music program at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, California, sometime around then. In 1965 he received an honorary knighthood from the British monarchy. In the same year, Australian composer Malcolm Williamson wrote a violin concerto for Menuhin. He performed the concerto many times and recorded it at its premiere at the Bath Festival in 1965. Originally known as the Bath Assembly,[4] the festival was first directed by the impresario Ian Hunter in 1948. After the first year the city tried to run the festival itself, but in 1955 asked Hunter back. In 1959 Hunter invited Yehudi Menuhin to become artistic director of the Festival. Menuhin accepted, and retained the post until 1968.[5] At the Edinburgh Festival in 1957 Menuhin premiered Priaulx Rainier's violin concerto Due Canti e Finale, which he had commissioned Rainier to write. He also commissioned her last work, Wildlife Celebration, which he performed in aid of Gerald Durrell's Wildlife Conservation Trust. Menuhin also had a long association with Ravi Shankar, which began with their 1966 album West Meets East. During this time, he commissioned composer Alan Hovhaness to write a concerto for violin, sitar, and orchestra to be performed by himself and Shankar. The resulting work, entitled Shambala (c. 1970), with a fully composed violin part and space for improvisation from the sitarist, is the earliest known work for sitar with western symphony orchestra, predating Shankar’s own sitar concertos, but Menuhin and Shankar never recorded it. Menuhin also worked with famous jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli in the 1970s on Jalousie, an album of pop music of the 1930s arranged in chamber style.In 1983 Menuhin and Robert Masters founded the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists. Now one of the world's leading competitions for young violinists, many of its prizewinners have gone on to become prominent violinists, including Tasmin Little, Nikolaj Znaider, Ilya Gringolts, Julia Fischer, Daishin Kashimoto and Ray Chen.In 1991 Menuhin was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize by the Israeli Government. In the Israeli Knesset he gave an acceptance speech in which he criticised Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank:"This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling amongst them."[6]In 1997 Menuhin and Ian Stoutzker founded the charity Live Music Now, the largest outreach music project in the UK. Live Music Now pays and trains professional musicians to work in the community, bringing the experience to those who rarely get an opportunity to hear or see live music performance.Menuhin's pupils included Nigel Kennedy, Nicola Benedetti, Peter Tanfield and the violists Paul Coletti and Csaba Erdélyi. He owned and played several notable instruments; arguably the most famous of which is the Lord Wilton Guarneri del Gesù (1742).In the 1980s Menuhin wrote and oversaw the creation of a "Music Guides" series of books; each covered a musical instrument, with one on the human voice. Menuhin wrote some, while others were edited by different authors. Later career Menuhin regularly returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, sometimes performing with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. One of the more memorable later performances was of Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto, which Menuhin had recorded with the composer in 1932. On 22 April 1978, along with Stéphane Grappelli, Yehudi played Pick Yourself Up, taken from the Menuhin & Grappelli Play Berlin, Kern, Porter and Rodgers & Hart album as the interval act at the 23rd Eurovision Song Contest for TF1. The performance came direct from the studios of TF1 and not that of the venue (Palais des Congrès), where the contest was being held.Menuhin hosted the PBS telecast of the gala opening concert of the San Francisco Symphony from Davies Symphony Hall in September 1980.During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Menuhin made jazz recordings with Stéphane Grappelli, classical recordings with L. Subramaniam and albums of Eastern music with the sitarist Ravi Shankar. In 1983 he founded the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists in Folkestone, Kent.His recording contract with EMI lasted almost 70 years and is the longest in the history of the music industry. He made his first recording at age 13 in November 1929, and his last in 1999, when he was nearly 83 years old. He recorded over 300 works for EMI, both as a violinist and as a conductor. In 2009 EMI released a 51-CD retrospective of Menuhin's recording career, titled Yehudi Menuhin: The Great EMI Recordings.In 1990 Menuhin was the first conductor for the Asian Youth Orchestra which toured around Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong with Julian Lloyd Webber and a group of young talented musicians from all over Asia.Personal life Yehudi Menuhin was married twice. He married Nola Nicholas, daughter of an Australian industrialist, and sister of Hephzibah Menuhin's first husband Lindsay Nicholas. They had two children, Krov and Zamira (who married pianist Fou Ts'ong). Following their 1947 divorce he married the British ballerina and actress Diana Gould, whose mother was the pianist Evelyn Suart (who had played with artists such as Eugène Ysa e and Karel Halíř), and whose stepfather was Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt. Menuhin and Gould had two sons, Gerard and Jeremy, a pianist. A third child died shortly after birth.The name Yehudi means 'Jew' in Hebrew. In an interview republished in October 2004, he recounted to New Internationalist magazine the story of his name:Obliged to find an apartment of their own, my parents searched the neighbourhood and chose one within walking distance of the park. Showing them out after they had viewed it, the landlady said: "And you'll be glad to know I don't take Jews." Her mistake made clear to her, the antisemitic landlady was renounced, and another apartment found. But her blunder left its mark. Back on the street my mother made a vow. Her unborn baby would have a label proclaiming his race to the world. He would be called "The Jew."[7]Menuhin died in Martin Luther Hospital,[8] Berlin, Germany, from complications of bronchitis.Soon after his death, the Royal Academy of Music acquired the Yehudi Menuhin Archive, one of the most comprehensive collections ever assembled by an individual musician.ViolinsMenuhin used a number of famous violins including the Giovanni Bussetto 1680, the Giovanni Grancino 1695, the Guarneri filius Andrea 1703, the Soil Stradivarius, the Prince Khevenhüller 1733 Stradivari, the Guarneri del Gesù 1739, and the Lord Wilton 1742 Guarneri del Gesù.Awards and honoursFreedom of the City (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1965)In 1965, while he was still an American citizen, Menuhin was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, which entitled him to use the postnominal letters KBE, but not to style himself Sir Yehudi. After Menuhin gained British citizenship in 1985, his knighthood was upgraded to a substantive one, and he became Sir Yehudi Menuhin KBE.The Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding (1968).[9]The Léonie Sonning Music Prize (Denmark, 1972)Nominated as president of the Elgar Society (1983)The Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (1984)The Kennedy Center Honors (1986)Appointed a member of the Order of Merit (1987)His recording of Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor with Julian Lloyd Webber won the 1987 BRIT Award for Best British Classical Recording (BBC Music Magazine named this recording "the finest version ever recorded").The Glenn Gould Prize (1990), in recognition of his lifetime of contributionsWolf Prize in Arts (1991)Ambassador of Goodwill (UNESCO, 1992)In 1993 Menuhin was made a life peer, as Baron Menuhin of Stoke d'Abernon in the County of Surrey.[10]The Konex Decoration (Konex Foundation, Argentina, 1994)The Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold of the United Nations Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin (1997)Honorary Doctorates from 20 universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the University of Bath (1969).[11]In the European Parliament in Brussels, the room in which concerts and performances are held is called the "Yehudi Menuhin Space".Menuhin was honored as "a Freeman" of the cities of Edinburgh, Bath, Reims and Warsaw.He held the Gold Medals of the cities of Paris, New York and Jerusalem.Honorary degree from Kalamazoo College[12]Cultural referencesThe catchphrase "Who's Yehoodi?" popular in the 1930s and 1940s was inspired by Menuhin's guest appearance on a radio show, where Jerry Colonna turned "Yehoodi" into a widely recognized slang term for a mysteriously absent person. It eventually lost all of its original connection with Menuhin.Yehudi Menuhin was also 'meant' to appear on The Morecambe and Wise Show but could not do so as he was 'opening at the Argyl Theatre, Birkenhead in Old King Cole'. He was replaced by Eric Morecambe in the famous "Grieg's Piano Concerto by Grieg" sketch featuring the conductor André Previn.A picture of Menuhin as a child is sometimes used as part of a Thematic Apperception Test.[13]BibliographyMenuhin, Diana (1984). Fiddler's Moll. Life With Yehudi. New York: St Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-28819-0Menuhin, Yehudi (1977). Unfinished Journey. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-41051-3.Menuhin, Yehudi (1997). Unfinished Journey: Twenty Years Later. New York: Fromm Intl. ISBN 0-88064-179-7.L. Subramaniam, Y. Menuhin; Directed by Jean Henri Meunier (1999) (documentary film). Violin From the Heart (DVD).Bailey, Philip (2008). Yehudiana – Reliving the Menuhin Odyssey|Book One. Australia: Fountaindale Press. ISBN 978-0-9804499-0-7.Bailey, Philip (2010). Yehudiana - Reliving the Menuhin Odyssey Book Two. Australia: Fountaindale Press. ISBN 978-0-9804499-1-4.Burton, Humphrey (2000). Yehudi Menuhin: a life. Northeastern. ISBN 978-1-55553-465-3.Films1943 – Menuhin was a featured performer in the 1943 film, Stage Door Canteen. Introduced only as "Mr. Menuhin," he performed two violin solos, "Ave Maria" and "Flight of the Bumble Bee" for an audience of servicemen, volunteer hostesses and celebrities from stage and screen1979 – The Music of Man (television series)The Mind of Music ***** Paul Marie-Adolphe Charles Paray (French: [pɔl paʁɛ]) (24 May 1886 – 10 October 1979) was a French conductor, organist and composer. He is best remembered in the United States for being the resident conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for more than a decade.[1] Contents 1 Biography 2 Selected works 3 References 4 External links 5 Other reading Biography[edit] Paul Paray was born in Le Tréport, Normandy, in 1886. His father, Auguste, was a sculptor and organist at St. Jacques church, and leader of an amateur musical society. He put young Paray in the society's orchestra as a drummer. Later, Paray went to Rouen to study music with the abbots Bourgeois and Bourdon, and organ with Haelling. This prepared him to enter the Paris Conservatoire. In 1911, Paray won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata Yanitza. As World War I started, Paray heeded the call to arms and joined the French Army. In 1914, he was taken prisoner of war and held in Darmstadt camp.[2] Deprived of paper, he composed the string quartet in E minor and the piano suite D'une âme... in his head, only writing them down from memory after the war. Once the war was over, Paray was invited to conduct the orchestra of the Casino de Cauterets in the Pyrenees which included players from the Lamoureux Orchestra. This was a springboard for him to conduct this orchestra in Paris. Later he was music director of the Monte Carlo Orchestra, and president of the Concerts Colonne. In 1922, Paray composed music for the Ida Rubinstein ballet Artémis troublée. That year he and the Spanish violinist Manuel Quiroga premiered his Violin Sonata. In 1931, he wrote the Mass for the 500th Anniversary of the Death of Joan of Arc, which was premiered at the cathedral in Rouen to commemorate the quincentenary of Joan of Arc's martyr death. In 1935, he wrote his Symphony No. 1 in C major, which was premiered at the Concerts Colonne. He composed his Symphony No. 2 in A major in 1941. Paray made his American debut with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra in 1939. In 1952, he was appointed music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, conducting them in numerous recordings for Mercury Records' "Living Presence" series. Following his departure from Detroit in 1963, Paray returned to France and maintained a healthy international guest-conducting career. He was in his tenth decade when he made his last conducting appearance in the United States, leading the Orchestra of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. A report in Musical America noted: "Now ninety-two, Paray brings to the podium not only a reputation as one of the great conductors of our time, but strength, energy, and a solid technique that have not diminished through the years." Paray married Yolande Falck in Cassis, France, on 25 August 1942. He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.[3] The government of France awarded him its highest honor, the Grand-Croix de la Légion d'honneur, in 1975. He died in Monte Carlo in 1979, aged 93.****  Paul Paray (Conductor, Organ, Composer) Born: May 24, 1886 - Le Tréport, France Died: October 10, 1979 - Monte Carlo, Monaco The distinguished French conductor, organist and composer, Paul Paray, began his musical education with his father, Auguste, who was a sculptor and organist at St. Jacques church, and leader of an amateur musical society. He put young Paul in the society's orchestra as a drummer. Later, Paul Paray went to Rouen to study music with the abbots Bourgeois and Bourdon, and organ with Haelling. In 1904 he entered the Paris Conservatoire, as a composition student, studied there with Leroux, Caussade, Lenepveu, and Vidal. In 1911, he won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata Yanitza. As World War I started, Paul Paray heeded the call to arms and joined the French Army. In 1914, he was a prisoner of war at the Darmstadt camp, where he composed a string quartet. After the war, in 1918, he was invited to conduct the orchestra of the Casino de Cauterets, substituting the ailing Caplet. The orchestra included players from the Lamoureux Orchestra. This was a springboard for him to make his Paris debut with this Orchestra on February 20, 1920. Soon he became assistant conductor of the Lamoureux Orchestra, succeeding Camille Chevillard as 1st conductor in 1923. In 1928, he was appointed Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, and in 1932, succeeded Pierné as conductor of the Concerts Colonne, remaining until the orchestra was disbanded by the Nazi occupiers of Paris in 1940. He conducted briefly in Marseilles, and, following the liberation of Paris, resumed his duties with the Concerts Colonne (1944-1952). In 1922, Paray composed music for the Ida Rubinstein ballet Artémis troublée. That year he and the Spanish violinist Manuel Quiroga premiered his Violin Sonata. In 1931, he wrote the Mass for the 500th Anniversary of the Death of Joan of Arc, which was premiered at the cathedral in Rouen to commemorate the quincentenary of Joan of Arc's martyr death. In 1935, he wrote his Symphony No. 1 in C major, which was premiered at the Concerts Colonne. He composed his Symphony No. 2 in A major in 1941. Paul Paray made his American debut with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra on July 24, 1939, in a programme of French music.. In 1949-1950 he was Music Directors, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1952, he was appointed Music Director of the reorganised Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and on October 18, 1956, inaugurated the new Ford Auditorium in Detroit in a programme that included his own Messe du cinquième centenaire de la mort de Jeanne d'Arc, a work first heard in the Rouen Cathedral in France in 1931. He conducted conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in numerous recordings for Mercury Records' "Living Presence" series. In 1963 he resigned and returned to France, although he continued to gust-conduct internationally, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, among many others. In 1977, at the age of 91, he conducted an orchestral concert in honour of Marc Chagall’s 90th birthday celebration in Nice, and, at the age of 92, made his last conducting appearance in the USA, leading the Orchestra of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Paul Paray could and did conduct the entire orchestral repertoire well, but he specialised in the French symphonic literature. One of Paray's most renowned recordings, made in October 1957, is that of Camille Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3 in C minor. The circumstances surrounding the recording were fortuitous. Paray had built the Detroit Symphony Orchestra into one of the world's most distinguished. Marcel Dupré, a friend and fellow student from childhood, was organist for the session. Marcel Dupré, as a young student, had pulled the organ stops for the composer Camille Saint-Saëns in a performance of the Symphony No. 3 in Paris, and the organ of Ford Auditorium in Detroit was well suited to the work. As well as being among the most authoritative readings of the work, the original analogue recording on the Mercury label remains an audiophile reference in vinyl, and the analogue-to-digital transfer produced by the original recording director Wilma Cozart for CD is also available from Mercury. Paul Paray married Yolande Falck in Cassis, France, on August 25, 1942. He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity. The government of France awarded him its highest honour, the Grand-Croix de la Légion d'honneur, in 1975.     ebay5805 folder204