Yehudi Menuhin & Hephzibah Menuhin - Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos. 7 & 10 (Remastered) (2020) [Hi-Res]

As a musician, as a man of ideals, and as a true world citizen, Yehudi Menuhin made an extraordinary mark on his era. The Menuhin Century commemorates the 100th anniversary of his birth on 22 April 1916. Hephzibah Menuhin (1920-1981), was one of the leading pianists of her time.

Sonata No. 7 and Sonata No. 10 come from sessions almost a year later, but in the opening of the Seventh Sonata, Menuhin seemed more confident and his bow arm, more supple. He maintains his poise throughout the first movement and enters upon the second with the kind of rapt communication with his pianist son and with the penetrating insight he displayed a year earlier in the slow movement of the “Spring” Sonata. Like the finale, the Scherzo’s wound tightly; both movements strut confidently, and the duo brings the Sonata to an end in a rush of adrenaline. By comparison, their reading of the final Sonata begins in a majestic, meditative calm. Yehudi strains once again in the slow movement, but the Scherzo is appropriately gnomic and the finale is expressive, though rough-hewn.

Yehudi Menuhin, violin
Hephzibah Menuhin, piano

Digitally remastered