Yehudi Menuhin's marked-up copy of Bach's Solo Violin Sonata no.2

A marked-up first page of Bach’s Sonata no.2, from the Sonatas and Partitas, ed. Adolf Busch (1919)

For Yehudi’s 13th birthday his father Moshe presented him with the Bach Gesellschaft Urtext edition of the complete works of J.S. Bach, which had previously belonged to Max Reger. Menuhin has marked this opening page of the Sonata no.2 with almost expressionist intensity. Menuhin was still in his teens when he made the first complete recordings of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for HMV.

The manuscript is currently on display at the Royal Academy of Music in London as part of its 'Yehudi Menuhin: Journey with a Violin' exhibition, drawn from the Foyle Menuhin Archive.

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