Music

Yehudi Menuhin is known as the finest and most celebrated artist and violinist of all time.

Yehudi was born on 22 April 1916 in New York City to Moshe Menuhin and Marutha Sher and he had two sisters.

In 1921 Yehudi started violin lessons with Sigmund Anker for two years and made his first performance at a school concert.

In 1923 he changed music teacher to Louis Persinger and he performed his first public concert in 1924 at the age of seven, he played Bériot’s Scène de Ballet accompanied at the piano by his teacher Louis Persinger.

Over the next few years he played many concerts with Louis Persinger at piano. From his first full length recital at San Francisco to New York recital début at the Manhattan Opera House.

In 1927, Yehudi then 10 years old, by in two concerts, one with the Lamoureux Orchestra under Paul Paray and the 2nd at Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, both in Paris.

In 1928 he undertook his first American tour, whilst in 1929 he was given the gift of a Stradivarius violin ‘Prince Khevenhüller’ from Henry Goldman.

He continually filled many concert halls of the years from Australia to South America and around many European countries.

He married Nola Nicholas in 1938 and had a two children, his daughter Zamira was born in 1939 and his son Krov in 1940.

He was deferred from fighting in the war and was asked to play to the troops across Europe and North America.

He met Diana Gould who was to become his 2nd wife following his divorce from Nola in 1947. In 1948, his 3rd child was born, a son named Gerard, with a 4th child, another son named Jeremy born in 1951.

He played concerts in Japan and India during 1952 & 1953 and after leaving USA to live in Europe in 1955 he establishes the firs Yehudi Menuhin School in London, transferring to Surrey a year later in 1963.

He was made an honorary Knight of the British Empire (KBE) in 1965 and conducted his first opera in 1966, for Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte at Bath Festival.

Following on from his knighthood, in 1985 he assumes British citizenship and so becomes Sir Yehudi, with the Queen making him a Member of the Order of Merit (OM) in 1987.

In 1993 Yehudi becomes a baron, known as The Right Honourable the Lord Menuhin of Stoke d’Abernon, OM KBE and takes his seat in the British House of Lords.

To celebrate the release of Nelson Mandela, Yehudi returned to South Africa and conducted Handel’s Messiah in township outside Johannesburg.

To celebrate his 80th year in 1996 he conducts more than 110 concerts. With his death on 12th March 1999 at the Martin Luther Hospital, Berlin.

Yehudi Menuhin’s legacy continues through his many schools, competitions, festivals, Live Music Now, academies and foundations he opened across the world.

This is an orchestral compostion, which is written is three separate movements, either for a single instrument or for a single instrument as dominant part with other instruments as background support, or for more than one instrument and orchestra.

Mozart wrote over fifty concerto’s for a variety of instruments.  J.S. Bach wrote six concerto’s for the Margrave of Brandenburg in the years from 1719 to 1721.

Another form of concerto is the Concerto Grosso, which was very popular in the 18th century, and this was for a large group of instrumentalists to interplay with a smaller group.  This phrase comes from the Italian and means big concerto.

 

With the Eurovision song contest coming up in May 2013 in Malmo, Sweden here are some facts from its past.

• The first Eurovision Song Contest was hosted in Switzerland in 1956 and Switzerland won.

• Although there have only been 53 Eurovision Song Contests, there have been 56 winners.  That’s because in 1969 four countries tied for first place.

• Lordi, were a Finnish rock band, they scored the highest points in the competition with 292, singing ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’.

• Throughout the years there have been 27 female winners but only 7 men.

• Ireland have been the most successful winners, as they have won the competition seven times.

• In 1986 the youngest winner was Sandra Kin from Belgium who was 13 years old, she sang J’aime le Vie.

• Spain’s wining entry in 1968 was  La La La La and it used the word ‘La’ 138 times.

• The Eurovision was first broadcast in colour in 1968 from London’s Royal Albert Hall.  Where Cliff Richard came second, beaten only by Spain by one point.

• In the 56 years of the competition around 1,100 songs have been performed.

• It’s estimated that around 100 million people tune in each year to watch.

And finally, Bonnie Tyler is to represent the United Kingdom in the 2013 competition, singing ‘Believe in Me’.

An orchestra is a group of various musical instruments joined together to create beautiful music.

They are divided into four groups as follows:

• Percussion – These instruments are either banged, hit, scraped or shaken. Such as the drum, cymbal or triangle to name a few.  They add a beat to the piece of music.

• Woodwind – These make a sound when air blown into them causes a vibration.  Players can alter the sound by covering holes with their fingers, or by pressing metal “keys” on the instrument.  The clarinet and the flute are good examples of a woodwind instrument.

• Brass – These are long tubes that open into a bell shape at one end.  The player blows into one end of the tube, called the mouthpiece.  On instruments like the trumpet the musician presses down buttons to create varying sounds.  The trombone and horn are also part of this section.

• String – These are played by plucking with your fingers or running a bow across the strings.  The double bass has the deepest sound whereas a violin is a much higher pitch.

And together these four groups make up an orchestra along with the conductor who directs the musicians with arm and hand movements.

 

The sound of music has always been alive and kicking but more recently, the Alpine hills are alive with the sound of that well know tradition of yodelling.

This is a very traditional form of singing. It involves singing an extended note which rapidly and repeatedly changes in pitch from the vocal or  “chest voice” to the falsetto/head register – making a high-low-high-low sound.

The English word yodel is derived from a German word jodeln meaning “to utter the syllable jo” (pronounced “yo” in English).  It is said that the calls may have been endearments that shepherds used to express affection to their herds and the earliest record of a yodel is in 1545, where it is described as “the call of a cowherd” from Appenzell.

Some traveling minstrels were yodeling in the United Kingdom and the United States as early as the eighteen-hundreds. Most music historians state that the first recording of yodeling was by Riley Puckett in 1924.

In 1928, Jimmie Rodgers blended traditional work, blues, hobo and cowboy music and released his first recording “Blue Yodel No 1 “, thus starting an instant national craze for yodeling in the United States.

So how do you fancy trying out an unique art of singing with a little “Oh-di-lay-ee-ay, di-lay-dee-oh, de-lay-ee” in the Austrian hills just like Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music”.

Now is your chance by taking a visit to the Alpine hills and joining the many tourists who are taking part.