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 In 1951, Yehudi Menuhin paid his first visit to India. Soon after his arrival in Delhi, where he was to give several concerts, he was invited to attend an Indian music soiree at the home of Dr. Narayana Menon. There he heard the brilliant young sitarist Ravi Shankar, and the strong friendship born on that evening has added significantly to the music of our time.

 In the early 1930s, Ravi Shankar, as aboy dancer in his brother Uday’s troupe, had seen the boy violinist Yehudi Menuhin rehearsals with Menuhin’s teacher Georges Enesco in Paris. He ever afterward regarded the young prodigy as an idol and a hero. Menuhin in 1950 found in Ravi Shankar a similar revelation of genius. Deeply moved by the music he heard, Menuhin became its champion, learning about it, writing and speaking of it at every opportunity.

 The two friends performed on the same stage at the UNESCO celebration in 1958 and on other occasions, but it was not until 1966 that they played their first duet. Menuhin invited Shankar to join him at the Bath Festival of that year, where they jointly performed a piece conceived by Shankar with Raga Tilang as its base. On Human Rights Day, December 10, 1967, they made their memorable joint appearance before the invited members of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Accompanied by Alla Rakha on table and Kamala on tanpura, they performed a work composed for the occasion by Shankar based on Raga Piloo, giving concert meaning to the phase “East Meets West.”

 The two works became the foundations for two of the most successful classical albums of all time, Swara-Kakali, based on Raga Tilang was included in the Angel album West Meets East as one of four works performed, variously, by Menuhin, Shankar, Hephzibah Menuhin, Alla Rakha and Prodyot Sen. Released in 1967, the recording immediately achieved a place on Billboard’s chart of Best-Selling Albums and occupied for may weeks first place on the Best-Selling Classical Albums lists. Time magazine called it “one of the year’s most fascinating classical albums.” Wrote Time of Menuhin: “Throughout the  scored passages as well as the improvisations, Menuhin displays not only his accustomed technical brilliance but also an amazingly supple and knowing way with the complexities of the Indian musical idiom.” Said The New York Times of Shankar: “He is in as high a virtuso class as anything this century has heard from Horowitz, Heifetz, Casals or Menuhin.” At the 1968 “Grammy” Awards ceremonies of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, West Meets East took the award as the Best Chamber Music Performance of its year.

West Meets East, Album 2, released in 1968, was an equally magical confluence of genius. It included the aforementioned work by Shankar on the Raga Piloo, as well as a brief Dhun on folk melodies, a sitar solo on the Raga Ananda Bhairava, and Six Duos for two violins fromBartok’s “44 Duos.”

 For their new collaboration West Meets East Album 3, Shankar and Menuhin have invited a third friend to join them, the incomparable French flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal. Also participating are the young French Harpist Martine Gellot, Alla Rakha on table, and Kamala, Nodu Mullick, and Amiya Dasgupta on tanpuras.

 The album introduces four compositions by Ravi Shankar on four ragas. Entitled by their composer Tenderness, Twilight Mood, The Enchanted Dawn, and Morning Love, they provide the vehicles for stunning improvisation like blends of Eastern and Western instruments in entrancing combinations

 For their third collaboration on records in West Meets East, Album 3, Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar are joined by these outstanding colleagues:

 Jean-Pierre Rampal was described by the New York Times: ‘He simply plays the flute and its literature with more virtuosity and aplomb than anybody else. “Wrote The Philadelphia Bulletin: “He has no superior and probably no peer,” Born in 1922, Rampal first studied with his father Joseph Rampal who taught flute at the Cnservatoire in Marseilles. Three years of medical school preceded his total capitulation to his true vocation, music and his enrollment at the Paris Conservatoire. He took a Conservatoire first prize in the astonishingly short time of five months. At the end of World War 2, Rampal embarked on his first concert tour. He has since progressed unerringly to a position of enexcelled eminence in the world of music, with many Grand Prix du Disque awards to his credit.

 Martine Geliot, born in Paris in 1948, is the daughter of harpist Huguette Domange. Her grandmother also was a harpist and her great grandmother a composer. The child Martine began music studies at si. At 14, she took a first prize in harp at the Paris Conservatorire where her mother and grandmother also had taken firsts. At 16, she took first prize at the Triennial International Harp Concert in Israel, winning over 29 candidates from 14 countries. Since that triumph, she has made annual tours and recitals in many parts of the world. In addition to her solo appearances, she has participated in concerts and festivals with both Jean-Pierre Ramphal and Yehudi Menuhin.

 Alla Rakha is one of the greatest table players India has produced, renowned for the fleetness of his responses to the sitar, as for his incredible dexterity, technique, and tone production. Trained by the famous teacher Ustad Kader Bux, Alla Rakha served on the faculty of Ravi Shankar’s Kinnara School in Bombay. He has composed music for Indian films. The superb musical communion between Alla Rakha and Ravi Shankar is a result of their lengthy association in performances all over the world.

 Kamala, in addition to being a fine musician, has impressive family credentials. Her sister, whom she has sometimes accompanied, is the renowned singer Lakshmi Shankar, Wife of Ravi Shankar’s brother Rajendra. Kamla has appeared with Ravi Shankar at Monterey, Woodstock, the United Nations, and in many other notable performances in concert and on recordings.

 Nodu Mullick plays tabla as well as tanpura and is still more celebrated as a superb maker of instruments who spends as many as two or three years crafting by hand a single magnificent sitar. He has for years made all the instrument played by Ravi Shankar.

 Amiya Dasgupta: In the Indian tradition, a young musician apprentices himself to a single teacher for life. Amiya Dasgupta’s teacher of some 20 years is Ravi Shankar, with whom he often appears in performance. Amiya Dasgupta, in turn, currently teaches North Indian music at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California.

Artists: 

Yehudi Menuhin (Violin), Ravi Shankar (Sitar), Jean-Pierre Rampal (Flute),  Martine Geliot (Harp), Alla Rakha (Tabla), Nodu Mullic (Small Tanpura), Amiya Dasgupta (Bass tanpura), Kamala

Tracks:

SIDE ONE

SHANKAR: TENDERNESS (based on Raga Nata-Bhairav)    - Yehudi Menuhin (Violin), Ravi Shankar (Sitar), Alla Rakha (Tabla), Nodu Mullic (Small Tanpura), Amiya Dasgupta (Bass tanpura)

SHANKAR: TWILIGHT MOOD (based on Raga Puriya Dhanashri)    - Yehudi Menuhin (Violin), Ravi Shankar (Sitar), Alla Rakha (Tabla), Nodu Mullic (Small Tanpura), Amiya Dasgupta (Bass tanpura)

SIDE TWO

SHANKAR: THE ENCHANTED DAWN (based on Raga Mian-ki Todi)     - Jean-Pierre Rampal (Flute),  Martine Geliot (Harp)