Was there ever a violinist so often filmed as Menuhin? The numerous film clips and still photographs of Menuhin playing in concert, while recording or in rehearsal show why: the chiselled good looks, imperious instrumental command and expressively communicative style. Although arranged very broadly in chronological sequence, Bruno Monsaingeon’s 1994 documentary film – a 1996 Gramophone Award-winner – is not so much a biography as a saunter in Menuhin’s company down Memory Lane.
Menuhin displays a curious detachment when recalling his life – people, even family, seem like ‘characters in a play’ to him, not real flesh and blood. Regret tinges the section on his sister Hephzibah, whom he ‘failed’ by being so unaware of her ‘deep emotional life’ beyond music. A little passion appears when discussing Israel, or Heifetz’s attempt to make him join a union, but Menuhin is only really animated when talking about music and musicians. Playing with Ravi Shankar showed him how to ‘savour the taste’ of each note. There are fascinating vignettes of Enescu (reminiscences of whom crop up like a refrain throughout), Postnikova, Richter, Bartok and Fischer-Dieskau, whose singing possessed ‘great resonance … but a curious lack of rhythm’. Enescu, Glenn Gould and Wilhelm Kempff are compared in the first 12 bars of Beethoven’s Tenth Violin Sonata: Enescu’s playing was ‘unbelievable … but then Gould did as well … [Gould had] a more mystical quality, a divine presence not apparent in Kempff’.
Some of the synchronisation of archive film and sound is a little imprecise, though the beginning of the Beethoven Concerto is neatly cut between performances under Colin Davis, Casals and Rozhdestvensky. Not a note, however, is heard of the landmark 1932 recording of the Elgar Concerto conducted by the composer (which we are told has been available ever since); it is substituted in sound by a 1966 performance with the New York Philharmonic.
Subtitles are available in English, French and German. Those in English are somewhat inconsistent, not always translating the few French spoken passages. And was it really necessary, when Menuhin sings a musical phrase, to have ‘Ta da da di di’ displayed? Picture quality is very good.'