MYSTERY OF GENIUS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 January 1930, Page 6

MYSTERY OF GENIUS

GREAT MUSICAL PRODIGY. TWELVE-YEAR-OLD VIOLINIST A small, chubby-faced bov stepped out of a Continental train a.t Victoria Station, London, recently, and looked about him with eager, blue eyes. “Well, here I am!” he said in English, with an American accent, “and I’m wondering what London is like outside this place.” The lad might have 'made the remark in French or German, or Hebrew, for he was Yehudi Menuhin, the 12-year-old violinist, who has been hailed as a genius and the greatest prodigy since Paganini, and who is a linguist as well as a bafflingly wonderful musician.

On this, his first visit to (England, and when asked if be felt excited to be in the great London that he had heard so much about, he answered with a boyish grin, “You bet!” Giving a tug to the peak of his cap, the boy continued : “I’ve been looking forward a long time to coming here, and I guess I’ll go round a bit and see the sights if I get a. chance. But my concerts have to come first, you know.” He grinned again—at his father, who goes everywhere with him as guardian, guide, and professor. “Yehudi,” said Mr Menuhin, “is just a boy, but if 1 allowed people to make a great fuss of him and take him round and talk ‘shop’ to him he’d soon be a boy no longer. I simply won’t have him spoiled in any way whatever. Because I will not have him hustled L permit him to play in public during only three months in the year; ho spends the other nine months in study.” Yehudi’s extraordinary musical gift is a mystery to his parents. Mr Menuhin said: “It is not in the least hereditary. I cannot play any instrument, and his mother plays only a, very little. We first noticed indications of his gift when he was two years old. After we had taken him to a concert he demanded a violin to play. AVe bought him a toy one, but he very soon asked for a real one. When he was four and a-half he was playing, and at six he was playing! with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.”