10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Menuhin/ Brother and Sister Duo, October 9, 2005
This review is from: Yehudi Menuhin and Hephzibah Menuhin Play Franck, Schubert & Bartok (EMI Classic Archive 25) (DVD)
This DVD is amazing. The music played by a brother and sister, the closness and the emotion you feel when you hear this is so wonderful.
The Franck Sonata is the best performance I've ever heard, and I've heard many performances of the Franck Sonata. I've never seen anyone before now play this work by memory. No one has to play these works by memory, but I guess they have played it so much, it was memorized. Hephzibah has such power, but yet soft on the keys. Never harsh.Her technique is outstanding. It is hard to believe that her parents wanted her to be a house wife and mother, and didn't want her to go into music. The woman is a genius like her brother.
Back in the 1970's I heard Hephzibah Menuhin live in a recital with flutist Elaine Shaffer. The highlight of my life. I was 13, sitting in the front row. I was a flute student, and now I'm a pro flutists. I also had the pleasure to meet these two strong women back stage.It wasn't long after that, Elaine Shaffer died of cancer. But back to this video. The cellist, Maurice Gendron is also a musicians musician. I never even have heard of him untill now, and that surprises me because I have a great passion for the cello.
I hope you will buy this amazing DVD. It's one of a kind.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Rebirth of Enescu?, April 13, 2004
This review is from: Yehudi Menuhin and Hephzibah Menuhin Play Franck, Schubert & Bartok (EMI Classic Archive 25) (DVD)
Menuhin's playing reminds us of Enescu so much (and the influence of Carl Flesch is small)! With Kreisler, you're listening to a cozy friend and with Menuhin, you're communicating heart to heart with a close relative.
The Schubert trio is an absolute jem from whichever way you look at it. The pianist is so delightful never quite as oppressive as Richter. Maurice Gendron is a most marvelous cellist who is even more impressive than his compatriots, Tortelier and Fournier. Their collaboration is most perfect.
Menuhin's Franck is as expressive as ever and perhaps only Thibaud could compare with him in this regard. His sister played this sonata without the score in front of her! And his Bartok is in colour with excellent sound. And some say his Bartok is even better than Szegetti.
This DVD doesn't give you a full dimension of Menuhin's art though, nor is there any climax.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Travel through time with the Menuhins, July 27, 2010
This review is from: Yehudi Menuhin and Hephzibah Menuhin Play Franck, Schubert & Bartok (EMI Classic Archive 25) (DVD)
I really like Yehudi Menuhin, and this disc is a good collection of chamber performance, mainly with his sister Hephzibah at the piano. I enjoyed these performances, but especially the recordings from 1960, which make up the heart of the disc, suffer a bit from age and the technology of the time, with tape hiss from the video and poor microphoning. Still, these are some great performances and well worth watching!
The collection starts off with César Franck's Violin Sonata in A major, recorded at the BBC studios in 1960. I really love this work, but I have to admit this version didn't appeal to me as much as some others. The Menuhins take the first movement very slowly, and I felt it resulted in some timing and tempo problems, like they had trouble in the first few minutes getting in synch. Any difficulties were clearly ironed out quickly, however, and the rest of the performance is excellent, suffering only from some minor sound quality issues -- mainly tape hiss (although this perception may be exaggerated by the fact that I was watching with headphones).
The Schubert Piano Trio No. 1 is performed by Yehudi and Hephzibah Menuhin with Maurice Gendron on cello, again in the BBC Studios in 1960. This is a wonderful performance that suffers from the recording quality, as the musicians are not closely microphoned and the sound is a bit muddy and indistinct. However, the performance is still very enjoyable.
Béla Bartók's Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet and Piano is performed by Menuhin with Jeremy Menuhin on piano and Thea King on clarinet, recording for ORTF in Paris in 1972. I really like this piece and this is a great performance, especially enjoyable because I had never seen it performed before, just heard it. Like much of Bartók's work, it is highly modern for its day, but is based on Hungarian and Romanian folk music themes. I would also recommend
this set, which contains a fantastic historic recording of this piece, I believe the first recording ever, performed by Bartók himself on piano, with the great Jozsef Szigeti on violin and Benny Goodman on clarinet. The story goes that fellow Hungarian Szigeti asked Bartók to write the work, but that Goodman actually commissioned it from Bartók.
The remaining works on the disc are excerpts. First comes the 3rd movement of Bartók's Violin Sonata No. 1, then the 1st movement of George Enescu's Violin Sonata No. 3, both recorded for ORTF in Paris in 1972. Yehudi and Hephzibah Menuhin are the performers again. These are really great performances, and are also especially enjoyable for the hippie clothing the Menuhins are wearing, with Yehudi clad in a big red faux eastern European peasant shirt. Love the playing, love the grooviness of the visuals.
And talk about "Contrasts" -- the tuxedo-clad performances from Britain in 1960 of 19th century pieces could not contrast more with the flower-power feel of the 1972 recordings of 20th century works. We travel with the Menuhins through time, and it's an enjoyable ride. Highly recommended.
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