Music: Prodigious Sister

When young Yehudi Menuhin went out into the world to give the violin recitals which made his name great and his family independent, his mother vowed that there would be no more prodigies in the family, that her daughters Hephzibah and Yaltah would remain at home with her. Last year Hephzibah, who at 15 is an expert pianist, made phonograph records with Yehudi of Mozart’s A Major Sonata (No. 42) which took the prize for being the best made in France in 1933. Hephzibah’s playing for the records was so skillfully mature that people began to doubt whether she had really been at the piano. She heard the talk, begged to prove herself. Mrs. Marutha Menuhin consented to three concert appearances with Yehudi this season—one in Paris, one in London, one in Manhattan. Last week the young Menuhins played in London. Yehudi led Hephzibah on stage by the hand, bowed calmly like a man of the world. Hephzibah went straight to the piano, shrank from applause. But her playing proved to Londoners that hers is a talent almost as prodigious as her brother’s.