BOY VIOLINIST MOBBED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 28

BOY VIOLINIST MOBBED

WOMEN RUSH PLATFORM Yehudi Menuhin, the 12-year-old violinist whose genius has astounded the whole of Europe and the United States, was the centra) figure in amazing scenes at the Albert Hall, London, recently. At the close of his recital, which wa3 listened to rapturously by an audience of many thousands, hundreds of women andf girls surged excitedly toward the platform and struggled to reach him. YAhudi stood smiling nervously and bowing awkwardly, and when, with

some difficulty, he escaped to tlie artists’ room, the audience burst into clamorous cheering. Presently Yehudi reappeared and played again, while his audience crowded thickly about him on all sides. With the last note the clamour once more broke forth. A second time he came back and played, and a third time. This last time he found himself hemmed in on the platform, people packing themselves so closely round him that, he had barely room in which to wield his bow.

Never, probably, had anything like this scene been witnessed at the Albert Hall. Some of the lights had been switched off, and Yehudi stood in the radiance of the low-hanging platform light which shimmered on his White blouse, and turned his fair hair to gold. He played utterly undisturbed by the closeness of the people. At length his hand dropped, and with another stiff little inclination of his head he disappeared down the artists’ exit with a score of women at his heels. Some made a final attempt to hug him, but he eluded their outstretched arms and ran down the stairway. * iinuilißlgfl

When, with his father and Mr. Lionel Powell, the impresario, Yehudi tried to leave the building he was mobbed. A big crowd was waiting at the artists’ door, and shouting, “Yehudi! Yehudi!” women and girls rushed at him. Finally he was half pushed, half carried, into a motor-car.

Yehudi was quite unaffected demonstration, but he said that he found it “jolly” to play to English people. “But, my!” he said, “don’t they just get excited.”