The Uncommon Friendship of Yaltah Menuhin and Willa Cather

The Uncommon Friendship of Yaltah Menuhin and Willa Cather, Lionel Rolfe, American Legends Publishing, 2004

This book is a look inside a very famous musical family, the Menuhins, and a long-term friendship between two very different women.

The Menuhin family contained three world-class musical prodigies, when most families would be happy with just one prodigy. Yehudi, the famous one, was considered the greatest musical talent of the 20th Century. Hephzibah, his sister, usually accompanied him on the piano. Then there was sister Yaltah, also a pianist. According to people who know about such things, she was the most talented of them all.

The family was run by Marutha, their mother, a cold, domineering woman. Yaltah was told, more than once, that the only reason she was alive was because of a broken diaphragm. Yaltah and Hephzibah were allowed piano lessons for the sole purpose of attracting a husband. When it came to marriage, all that mattered, according to Marutha, was whether or not he came from a well-to-do family; love was irrelevant. Yaltah's first "arranged" marriage lasted about 6 months. The family lived in Paris, because that is where the great musicians were. The rise of Hitler in the 1930s forced a move to Manhattan, where they met Willa Cather.

She was a novelist and newspaper writer from the American Midwest, who became good friends with the family and became the children's teacher (there was no regular school for the Menuhin's). Marutha kept the children out of the public eye as much as possible (their educational walks with Cather began at 6:00 AM). As the years went on, the friendship between Yaltah and Willa grew. Willa helped Yaltah deal with her mother's unfeeling personality, and Yaltah ended up inspiring several of Willa's later novels.

For Yaltah's second marriage, in the early 1940s, she eloped with an Army lawyer named Ben Rolfe. Her parents never accepted him as part of the family. The marriage ended after a number of years, partly because of his jealousy over her musical career. It was only after 2 more not-very-pleasant marriages, and her moving to London, that in the last few years of her life, she regained something like the musical career she had when she was younger.

Here is a very personal look inside a famous musical family, written by an "insider." (the author is Yaltah's son). It is very much worth reading, not just for classical music fans, or fans of 20th Century female novelists, but for everyone.

Literary L.A.

Literary L.A., Lionel Rolfe, California Classics Books, 2002

Based on a series of newspaper pieces written in the late 1970s, this book profiles some of the people who made Los Angeles' bohemian culture in the 20th century. Many people think that San Francisco, with the Beat Generation, was the "center" of bohemian living, but the City of Angels had quite a thriving culture of its own.

It all grew out of the coffeehouse scene, where a constantly changing group of poets, literary gypsies, writers in exile (real or self-imposed) and others, would get together and weave pieces of the literary tapestry of Los Angeles. Rolfe profiles the famous, and not so famous, including Theodore Dreiser, Charles Bukowski, Henry Miller, John Steinbeck, Aldous Huxley and the Mann brothers (Thomas and Heinrich). There is also a piece on Upton Sinclair's 1934 campaign for Governor of California. Running on the Socialist Party ticket, he received 45 percent of the vote despite a major smear campaign against him.

As part of a musical family (the virtuoso violinist Yehudi Menuhin was an uncle), Rolfe grew up in a household that offered a place to go for musicians and other artists-in-exile. This book was not written as some piece of dry literary history, it was written by someone who was there and lived through that era, and has spent much of his life writing about it.

As a lifelong voracious reader, I very much appreciated Rolfe's putting a person and life to the names I have seen on book covers my whole life. Anyone with an interest in 20th century American literature will enjoy this book. I think I'll visit my local library and see how many of these authors are in the stacks. Meantime, this book is highly recommended.

Death and Redemption in London and L.A.

Death and Redemption in London and L.A., Lionel Rolfe, http://deadendstreet.com, 2000

This sort-of autobiography from Rolfe is about the general subject of death.

He talks about attending a 1999 memorial service at Westminster Abbey in London for his late uncle, the virtuoso violinist, Yehudi Menuhin. Rolfe grew up in a household full of classical music. Rolfe's mother, Yaltah, and aunt, Hephzibah, were themselves musical prodigies, giving concerts before their teens. Rolfe's relationship with the rest of the family had been difficult, including being cut out of the family will, ever since in the 1970s he wrote a less-than-flattering book about the family. While in London, he visited Yaltah, living alone in a London suburb. From the outside she looks like the quintessential British eccentric, going out in public dressed as a bohemian all in blue. But she can provide a rich, very detailed description of her neighborhood and the people living in it. London is the sort of place where one might hear a person on the street whistling Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata,
Rolfe's favorite piece of music, in great contrast to Los Angeles, Rolfe's home, a land of strip malls and tract houses.

Have you ever heard the term "dying with dignity?" An old friend of Rolfe's, Nieson Himmel, a veteran LA police reporter from the old days, was not afforded that opportunity when his time came. Another friend, Carl Kessler, who called himself the last Stalinist in L.A., lived with Rolfe for a time. A long-time union organizer and activist, being bedridden with emphysema didn't stop him from being on the phone, all day, every day.

Rolfe also talks about the end of his 25-year marriage to Nigey Lennon, his wife. They met in the 1960s, while both hung around with Frank Zappa, with an 11-year age difference between them. One day, she left Rolfe for another man; but she never really leaves. She would live with the boyfriend for weeks at a time, then come back to Rolfe, leaving him again for the boyfriend.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish. Rolfe certainly isn't afraid to open up his emotions and pour them into his words. Parts are a good history of modern California, and the whole book is a fine piece of writing.

Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground

Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground, Lionel Rolfe, California Classics Books, 1998

The author has spent the last forty years as a traveling newspaperman in California, writing for everybody from the Los Angeles Free Press to the San Francisco Chronicle. This group of essays explores his travels and the people he has met along the way.

In the post-war era, San Francisco may have been the "center" of bohemian living, but Los Angeles had quite a thriving bohemian community of its own. The author's leftist political leanings got him blacklisted by the California Newspaper Association. Rolfe was the only member of the Menuhin family (the virtuoso violinist Yehudi Menuhin was an uncle) to actually work for a living; his politics also got him cut out of the family will. He explores the joys, and heartbreaks, of owning six cockatiels. His parents divorced when his mother wanted to live in London and continue her musical career; Rolfe's father, a worker's compensation attorney, didn't want her to go on tour, even some of the time. He talks about an emergency trip to Los Angeles County Hospital. It's a rather old teaching hospital that may not be state of the art in all things, but Rolfe found it to be full of conscientious doctors and nurses (not something that every hospital can boast), and it survived the 1994 Northridge earthquake, when many other newer buildings collapsed.

I really enjoyed this book. It isn't just a heartfelt autobiography in essay form, or a history of modern California as seen from the underside of society; it's more than that. This is well worth reading.