Menuhin & Fritz Kreisler
Renaud Capuçon & The Menuhin Academy Soloists

Orchestral Concert

Sunday, 16 August 2020
6 pm, Saanen Church

Despite their age difference (almost two generations), the links between Fritz Kreisler and Yehudi Menuhin are manifold. For the young Menuhin, Kreisler was an idol, as were Jascha Heifetz and Mischa Elman. He readily compared him to Beethoven, his favourite composer, and admitted that he felt closer to his “subtle emphasis” than to the “dazzling but more superficial texture” of Heifetz's playing. Kreisler returned the favour, believing that at the age of twelve the young Menuhin had deployed many of the gifts that nature had given him, and above all that he had achieved the most difficult goal of any artist: to remain himself, whatever the repertoire performed. At the head of the Menuhin Academy Soloists (which he took over in 2019), Renaud Capuçon perpetuates this illustrious lineage by placing at the centre of his teaching the values that have shaped the legend of these two giants of the violin.