I only saw him conduct once, the Halle in about 1994 (?) - Beethoven Egmont Overture, Elgar Symphony No 2 and something else I don't remember. I got the impression he was more a hindrance than a help in the Beethoven (at the joins), but there was much in the Elgar that was very special, and I do remember thinking of the link between that moment and one over sixty years earlier when he had recorded the Violin Concerto with the composer.

This thread brings back a sad memory for me.

I attended a performance in Glasgow in 1992 in which BBCSO's programme comprised RVW's Wasps Overture, Mozart's 40th Symphony and the world première (and, to date, only public performance) of Ronald Stevenson's Violin Concerto. The concerto had been commissioned some years earlier by Menuhin with a view to his premièring it; in the event, this concert was conducted by Menuhin who on that occasion deferred to one of his students, Hu Kun, to play its solo part. The concerto is of a little over 50 minutes' duration. The first half of the concert clearly evidenced BBCSO performing two works, of which it obviously knew at least one very well, almost in spite of the "direction" from the podium. The second half might have been little better than a fiasco had it not been for the corporate determination of the orchestra to try to do justice to what is one of Stevenson's most affecting works, for the conductor might as well have been on another planet most of the time and the soloist was sadly most notable for his ineffectuality in a work that demanded not only violinistic virtuoisty but a decent grasp of quite a few different violin playing traditions. Only in its final few minutes did Menuhin seem suddenly to emerge from what appeared to be some kind of disengaged stupor to pull himself together and endeavour to draw this work to its exciting close. That Menuhin had in the past been an excellent musician has never been in doubt, but anyone present on that occasion who had not already heard the best of his much earlier achievements as a violinist would not likely have guessed anything of the kind from his desultory and careless treatment of this ambitious work composed specially for him. I admit that this was the only occasion on which I observed Menuhin conducting live; I am nevertheless as glad to confirm that I've never experienced a repeat of this kind of performance as I am sad to have to say that I've yet to hear Stevenson's Violin Concerto played as it should be.

Best,

Alistair