Yehudi Menuhin Quotes

40 Sourced Quotes

The violinist is that peculiarly human phenomenon distilled to a rare potency - half tiger, half poet.

Yehudi Menuhin
Learning an imposed method seemed not in my nature

Yehudi Menuhin
What fascinated my imagination was the tremendous feat, which I felt I should be perfectly able to accomplish.

Yehudi Menuhin
We in the Western world have grown to understand matter as imprisoned light, and light as liberated matter, yet this has had no influence on our spiritual thought. In practical terms it only led to the creation of the atom bomb.

Yehudi Menuhin
In playing Beethoven the violinist should be a medium. There is little that is personal or that can be reduced to ingratiating sounds, pleasing slides and so on. Everything is dictated by the significance, the weight, structure and direction of the notes and passages themselves.

Yehudi Menuhin
Why is compassion not part of the established curriculum, an inherent part of our education? Compassion, awe, wonder curiosity, humility – these are the foundation of any real civilization, no longer the prerogatives, the preserves of any one church belonging to everyone, every child in every home, in every school.

Yehudi Menuhin
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
What guides us is children's response, their joy in learning to dance, to sing, to live together. It should be a guide to the whole world.

Yehudi Menuhin
We embark unhesitatingly on the path, in a direction that is absolutely right and urgent, supported by everyone, in the knowledge that this path is but a learning process... We have to keep on learning, creating, applying, by-passing, touching upon, refining and clarifying a number of notions and details that need to be improvised and applied and which, thank God, we cannot foresee. The only rigidity lies in our will, our conviction that we are on the right road and that our initiatives are most pressing.

Yehudi Menuhin
Homeopathy is the safest and more reliable approach to ailments and has withstood the assaults of established medical practice for over 100 years.

Yehudi Menuhin
There were other gurus and other lessons, but not until I met Iyengar did I take up the study regularly. My first meeting with him was like the casting of a spell. We made each other's acquaintance in Mumbai. He appeared in my rooms one morning and straightaway made it clear that the "audition" to follow was mine as much as his. For all my celebrity, to him I was just another Western body knotted through and through.

Yehudi Menuhin
I've had marvelous and incredible luck, and devoted parents, sisters, friends, and teachers. What more can one ask? These things contribute enormously. Probably the major part of one's success is due to these factors.

Yehudi Menuhin
The idea that a pupil is a passive recipient, a container waiting to be filled by the teacher's knowledge and instruction - all this is nonsense. Teaching is a living relationship, of give and take, of mutual learning.

Yehudi Menuhin
One should feel in the right arm the vibration of the bow hair on the strings. [...] The moment tension or hardness enters into the hand then of course the vibrations will not be felt- they cannot penetrate.

Yehudi Menuhin
Many people don't realize that it takes considerably more art & skill to play the violin lightly than it does to play it loudly. The best possible training for a young violinist is learning to play pianissimo and without pressure.

Yehudi Menuhin
I would hate to think I am not an amateur. An amateur is one who loves what he is doing. Very often, I'm afraid, the professional hates what he is doing. So, I'd rather be an amateur.

Yehudi Menuhin
The art of creation lies in the gift of perceiving the particular and generalizing it, thus creating the particular again. It is therefore a powerful transforming force and a generator of creative solutions in relation to a given problem. It is the currency of human exchanges, which enables the sharing of states of the soul and conscience, and the discovery of new fields of experience.

Yehudi Menuhin
It is absolutely vital to hold [the bow] as lightly as possible — rather as one might pick up a newborn bird.

Yehudi Menuhin
It is perhaps life's greatest accomplishment to live to old age, maintaining one's wits, one's sense of humor, one's health, and one's charm.

Yehudi Menuhin
In all teaching there must be a fusion of authority as an adult providing a stable framework for the children in one's care, and humility as another human being ready to educate an equal who may turn out to be a superior.

Yehudi Menuhin
Many people do not realise that it takes considerably more art and skill to play the violin lightly than it does to play it loudly. Indeed, the best possible training for young violinists is learning to play pianissimo and without pressure.

Yehudi Menuhin
Even at the risk of losing all the golden eggs of the future, I had to find out what made the goose lay those eggs

Yehudi Menuhin
To be an outstanding musician, you have to be very attentive to the smallest detail and willing to have infinite patience in the pursuit of your ideal.

Yehudi Menuhin
Undoubtedly I had lost time in balking at scales, arpeggios. [...] There is an advantage in establishing the top story of one's constructions first: One has seen the heights; one knows what one is building for and what must be sustained.

Yehudi Menuhin
[At age 7] In eight hours of concentrated practice between my twice-weekly lessons, I memorized the A major and played it for Persinger.

Yehudi Menuhin
To play great music, you must keep your eyes on a distant star.

Yehudi Menuhin
I can only think of music as something inherent in every human being - a birthright. Music coordinates mind, body and spirit.

Yehudi Menuhin
Obliged to find an apartment of their own, my parents searched the neighborhood 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" [Yehudi].

Yehudi Menuhin
When I was a boy no one seemed to ask where the energies come from. Land, oil, coal, air seemed inexhaustible. Now we are realizing how our very life depends upon restoring not only our balance with nature, but also that balance within ourselves. We are depleting our reserves of spirit, health, courage and faith at an alarming rate. The quiet practice of yoga is, in its humble yet effective way, an antidote.

Yehudi Menuhin
This is the best and ultimate purpose of conducting: Not only to lead (the musicians) and keep them together, not only to make their performance easier and simpler, but also to guide them so that they can play as they have always longed to play.

Yehudi Menuhin