Hephzibah Menuhin 1920-1981

In 1935 J. & N. Tait managed the Australian engagements for Yehudi Menuhin’s first world tour.
He was 19; his parents and sisters travelled with him, though neither Hephzibah nor Yaltah played in public. They did, however ‘read French tragedies to one another in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, and were photographed everywhere with the right people.’ In March 1938, backstage after a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, Bernard Heinze introduced Hephzibah and Yehudi to the Australian brother and sister Lindsay and Nola Lindsay, heirs to the Australian ‘Aspro’ fortune. Before the year was out, Yehudi had married Nola in London, and Hephzibah had married Lindsay, a grazier and keen music lover, at the Menuhin’s home in Los Gatos, California.      

At first, freed of the family’s control, Hephzibah settled happily into life on her husband’s remote sheep station, ‘Terrinallum’, near Darlington in the Western District of Victoria. She was only 18, yet she embraced the robust rural existence, devoting her energies to setting up a travelling library service, working in children’s education and raising two sons, Kronrod George and Marston. And she never abandoned her music. She and Yehudi played together many times during his 1940 tour of Australia for J. & N. Tait. She also gave countless solo recitals, supported local activities such as the Griller Quartet and Richard Goldner’s Music Viva, and befriended the many displaced European musicians who found their way to a new life in Australia. And she gave Australians their first chance to hear Bartok’s Second Piano Concerto and other unfamiliar works. When she was scheduled to participate in Bernard Heinze’s 1947 Brahms Festival, 1,000 people were turned away and the jostling crowd prevented both soloist and conductor from entering the Melbourne Town Hall.

Later in 1947, flying overseas with her husband and sons, Hephzibah met Melbourne businessman Paul Morawetz and his family. She played with Yehudi in New York and at the Prague Spring Music Festival in a concert organised by Morawetz. It was Morawetz who took Hephzibah to see the notorious Theresienstadt concentration camp. The effect on her was profound. Always an avid champion of worthy causes, she became increasingly alienated from her privileged life in Australia; she also became romantically linked with Morawetz. Their relationship lasted for several years.