From Paris, David Pike remarks:

"No one at WAIS has commented on the death of Menuhin, which is strange, since he was once Stanford's musician in residence (during the Vietnam Conflict, on which he spoke soberly, as he did on everything else). A film was made of his residence at Stanford, and was shown on French TV. It had been my hope to bring him into WAIS, and thus add the musical dimension to our Goethean multiplicity of interests (Goethe of course was tone death). Menuhin was unusually loyal to all his friends. Among them was Pierre Bertaux, the leading authority on Hoelderlin (and the prefacer of a book I wrote). When Bertaux died, Menuhin flew into Paris to play at his funeral, held in the little church of St Julien le Pauvre. No doubt others at Stanford have memories of this man who was not only an exceptional musician but a wonderfully warm individual."

The WAIS defence: As usual, David is right, but I had a tribute to Menuhin planned; David beat me to it. David did indeed propose that WAIS honor Menuhin with membership (or vice versa), and I was fully in favor, but the subject got lost at the bottom of the big pile. Yehudi Menuhin lived in nearby Los Gatos when we arrived at Stanford, and we immediately made a pilgrimage there to hear him play.

He combined unusual talent with rare kindness, as was evident in his founding in England a music school for talented children, who were shocked by his death. Of him it may well be said that he was "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy People Israel."

Ronald Hilton - 03/18/99

More on Yehudi Menuhin

The message on Yehudi Menuhin elicited warm responses, among them this message from Edith Coliver:

" I knew Yehudi personally and mourn his death. I met him a few years ago when he was honored for his many international services by International House in Berkeley, of which I am an alumna and board member. We had a long discussion (about two hours). He was truly a citizen of the world. He was fascinated by my experiences in Nuremberg [where Edith Coliver was a translator at the trials]. Converseley, he had wonderful ideas on how a United Nations should be constituted. He thought the artists, poets, musicians, writers, etc., with their sensitivities, would do much better running a United Nations than the politicians are doing. He founded, together with Ali Akhbar, the Asian Music Circle in London, which did much to bring Asian music and musicians to the attention of Western audiences. He signed a picture taken of us in wonderfully warm terms.

"I last saw him a couple of years ago when, the city of his youth failing to honor his eightieth birthday, San Francisco State University stepped into the breach and gave him a fitting celebration, with great musicians and all his San Francisco friends in attendance. He was failing then, and his death is a great loss to humanity. I hope his shining example will be replicated, or at least attempted to be replicated, by his legion of admirers."

My comment: Let the musicians provide the background, as Beethoven´s "Hymn to Joy" has done for the European Union (which should play it more often, rather than the Brussels Blues). But beware of artists generally. Beethoven as Secretary General of the U.N.?! God save the world from artists like García Lorca, Picasso, Pío Baroja, Buñuel, and the other clowns whom I knew personally and whom I blame for the idiocy which undermined the Spanish Republic. Artists, no! Women, yes! (except Edith Cresson).

Ronald Hilton - 03/18/99