- This January 22, Warner Classics releases Hephzibah Menuhin Homage – a new box set which sheds new light on the scope of her talent
- The box set comprises 9 discs and 2 DVDs and has been curated by distinguished French filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon
- The recordings and interviews span from 1933 to 1980 – a substantial proportion of which are world premiere releases of live recordings and interviews.
In addition to her musical career, Hephzibah Menuhin devoted considerable time and energy to humanitarian activities, notably setting up home in the socially deprived East End of London so that she and her sociologist husband could help children and adults in need. She also gave many concerts for charitable causes.
Bruno knew Hephzibah personally describing her as “An independent spirit, a gracious, generous woman who was also deserving of a place among the great pianists of the 20th century” . Monsaingeon has made documentaries on Yehudi Menuhin, Sviatoslav Richter, David Oistrakh, Glenn Gould and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
In a French TV interview from 1969, Hephzibah talked of the spiritual power of music:
“Music is the link to everything that is best in life. It connects one directly with all sorts of joys, with the disciplines one appreciates … and with huge rewards … [As a member of an audience] you are as safe and sound as can be, provided the artist is doing his best. I think you are in an environment that is good for you, that is good for your spiritual health.”
Hephzibah made a substantial career as a soloist in concerto and recital, but the musical public knows her best as the duo partner of her brother Yehudi, one of the most celebrated violinists of the 20th century; they performed together in public from the time she was 13 and he was 17. Hephzibah Menuhin: Homage contains many recordings they made together as a duo, but also documents her distinction as a recitalist and concerto soloist. Yehudi Menuhin spoke of his musical partnership with Hephzibah as “a natural extension of our relation as brother and sister. It was a matter of setting to music a relationship that already existed before we began playing together … Our sonata partnership bore the stamp of inevitability, it had to be … [We were] equal voices in dialogue with one another; and being so close, needing to make no effort to bend and blend our personalities.”