Conversations With Menuhin - Hardcover

Dubal, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151225869 ISBN 13: 9780151225866

Publisher: Harcourt, 1992

Synopsis

Concert pianist, musicologist, teacher, and author Dubal's interviews over the past several years with the illustrious Yehudi Menuhin comprise an informal self-portrait of the revered violinist/conductor and reveal the breadth of Menuhin's interests and concerns. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Celebrated violinist and teacher Yehudi Menuhin has long been famous for more than his music: philosopher, social critic, he has been the essence of the engaged artist. Here, in a series of conversations with Dubal, an author and teacher at Juilliard who has been for many years an intimate, he demonstrates the range of his concerns and his sympathies. Menuhin's views are invariably humane and thoughtful, covering a multitude of problems from the various forms of environmental, noise and food pollution to homelessness, racial disharmony, nationalism and terrorism. He also talks of music, of favorite composers and of star performers and conductors he has known, though there are few surprises here, and most of the comments are such as any educated music lover could make. Part of the drawback may lie in Dubal as an interviewer; though he has certainly woven together fairly seamlessly what must have been many conversations spread over a period of years, his own comments, designed to stimulate Menuhin's responses, are often banal, conventional, even fogeyish, of the "I don't know what the world is coming to!" type. Still, Menuhin's good sense, warmth and thoughtfulness consistently shine through.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Dubal, author ( Evenings with Horowitz , LJ 11/1/91), teacher, and former radio station director of New York City's WNCN, interviews the great 20th-century violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin on music and musicians, music and life, and the human condition. Unfortunately, this well-meaning venture does not serve the reputations of either participant very well. It consists of genteel chitchat, rife with generalizations, platitudes, and stereotypes that would be comical if they weren't so obviously genuine. Menuhin: "The Japanese people are digitally gifted because they work with chopsticks" and "the strength of Italy used to be that it had cheap pasta and cheap oranges." Dubal's questioning merely encourages this rambling dilettantism: "What are your feelings on the French Revolution, with all that equality and fraternity?" Surely, universal humanism is made of stronger stuff than this. Fans might find the volume to their liking, but others are cautioned to proceed at their own risk.
- Daniel Fermon, Museum of Modern Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harcourt
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0151225869
• ISBN 13: 9780151225866
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256