Career
One of Yaltah's earliest orchestral appearances was with Pierre Monteux and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, playing Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto. Over the years Yaltah performed a wide repertoire. She played a pivotal role in the careers of numerous young composers, particularly during her stay in Los Angeles in the 1950s. She had a great love of chamber music and performed the sonata literature of the violin, viola and cello, as well as works for larger groups. Yaltah gave many first performances of works by Erich Zeisl, George Antheil, Ernst Krenek, Frank Martin, Louis Gruenberg, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Walter Piston. She recorded for Everest, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, SPA, Music Library and EMI-World Record Club.
Yaltah's tours took her from Alaska to New Zealand; from Texas to Switzerland. She appeared in duo recitals with the cellists Gabor Rejto, George Neikrug, Guy Fallot and Felix Schmidt; violinist Israel Baker; violists Michael Mann and Paul Doktor, and with Joel Ryce in duo-piano with whom she appeared widely in recital, in double concertos, and in television specials in Paris, London and New York. She married Ryce in 1960, and the marriage was a happy one. The Menuhin-Ryce duo won the coveted Harriet Cohen International Music Award in 1962, in a programme largely devoted to works by Schubert for four hands. In 1966, they performed the Mozart Double Piano Concerto under the baton of Yehudi Menuhin in Gstaad and other venues in Europe. Yaltah and Joel Ryce were soloists in Saint-Saëns' The Carnival of the Animals for the BBC. In 1967, Yaltah and Joel recorded the entire duet repertoire of Mozart in America for Everest Records, the first time that this was done by one team of artists.
Yaltah performed regularly as both soloist and chamber player. In 1951 she made a joint New York debut with the violinist Israel Baker. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, she enrolled at the Juilliard School of Music in New York using the assumed name of "Kate Davis". Nobody recognised this pianist even when she proved to be so talented that she was put in charge of teaching other students.
The highlights of Yaltah's career include a performance for Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle in 1973, when she played the Schubert Notturno with Yehudi and Ross Pople; the Mozart Double Piano Concerto with Hephzibah for the Willa Cather centenary celebrations in America, and a recital with Joel Ryce at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, when they played Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Her charity performances included evenings for the British Red Cross; the Organisation of Rehabilitation Training (ORT), Geneva; the Goulston Foundation, London; Pentonville Prison and for Friends of the Rose, Geneva. Her recorded favourites include the "family" recording of the Mozart Triple Concerto (Yaltah, Hephzibah and Jeremy at the piano, with Yehudi conducting) and the four-hand piano duets of Mozart with Joel.
Yaltah was a co-founder in 1965 (with Stefan Askenase and Johannes Wasmuth) and director of "Arts and Music", an international non-profit social project for the benefit of young artists and the arts in general. Marcel Marceau and Oskar Kokoschka were among its strongest supporters. "Arts and Music" - still active to this day - was housed in a beautiful old railway station at Rolandseck, near Bonn. She took a very keen interest in youth orchestras and played with the Brighton Youth Orchestra, also undertaking tours in Wales with Aelodau'r Gerddorfa, the all-Wales Youth Orchestra.
Read more about this topic: Yaltah Menuhin
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