The spotlight has been on him since his debut at seven in 1924. By the time he was 13, he had performed in Paris, London and New York. In Berlin, his performance prompted physicist Albert Einstein to exclaim, ``Now I know there is a God in heaven.''

Reportedly the world's highest paid musician in the 1930s, his striving for perfection made him a legend. Menuhin said the violin made its own demands, ``almost like a pagan goddess, exacting a certain tribute''.

When he was 38, one New York newspaper wrote, ``The freshness and unique purity of his playing is exhilarating. No other violinist has such speaking eloquence in the tone alone.''

He gave up public violinperformances in his 70s. His hearing was a little impaired by then and he had taken on many more interests. But his conducting was still full of energy and his travel schedule gruelling.

``I feel that what I've learned in music I can apply to a wide repertoire..., which is fun because I am exploring new terrain,'' he said in an interview at the time of his 80th birthday.

``But I feel no desire now to spend hours working away again at something which I myself in the past and other people can play far better than I can now. I don't see the point,'' Menuhin said in the interview.

A British citizen since 1985 and a life peer since 1993 -- Baron Menuhin of Stoke d'Abernon in the county of Surrey -- he had a school in England and an academy in Switzerland for young musicians, whom he often conducted.He also helped found various musical festivals, held the Nehru Peace Prize and was a goodwill ambassador for UNESCO.

While pursuing interests such as the environment, organic farming, alternative medicine,education and the plight of gypsies, he stuck to a longstanding healthy diet and yoga.

``I don't squander my energies. I keep myself in fairly good trim. I stand on my head every morning. Conducting is a wonderful exercise because it uses every faculty,'' he said.

He conducted an orchestra on his head and conversed with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru while both were upside down.

Menuhin was born in New York in 1916 of Russian-Jewish parents who had emigrated separately via Palestine. When Yehudi was two and the family was living in San Francisco, the Menuhins smuggled him into a concert. He behaved well and listened happily -- leading to regular visits.

After he broke a toy violin in a tantrum because it would not ``sing'', his grandmother in Palestine sent a cheque to buy real violin for his fourth birthday.

His mother soon took him to Louis Persinger, leader of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, for private tuition. This was followed by study in Europe with two great musicians, Romanian Georges Enescoand German Adolf Busch.

By the mid 1930s, Menuhin had completed his first world tour. His parents and younger sisters Hephzibah and Yaltah, who became professional pianists, travelled with him.

Composer Sir Edward Elgar conducted him and hailed him as the perfect interpreter of his violin concerto. Hungarian composer Bela Bartok wrote his last work, a celebrated sonata for solo violin, for him.

He broadened his musical horizons by playing with sitarist Ravi Shankar and jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, described himself as a fan of the Beatles and attended a rock concert by the Rolling Stones.

The name Yehudi means `Jew' but Menuhin held to no single creed and called himself an ``ardent neutral''. He played for both Israeli and Palestinian charities and urged reconciliation between Israel and the Arabs.

He was attacked by many Jews for supporting German conductor Wilhelm Furtwaengler but criticised those who sought to demonise Germans as a whole for the war. Saying the allied destruction of Dresdenwas ``a crime'', he performed there in 1995, 50 years on.

Menuhin worked for the freedom of Soviet dissidents and black South Africans and brought young Chinese violinists to study in Britain. He cancelled a 1989 visit to China by his Asian Youth Orchestra after the massacre of demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

After Menuhin and his first wife, Australian Nola Nicholas divorced in 1947, he married British ex-ballet dancer Diana Gould. He has a daughter, Zamira, and son, Krov, from his first marriage and sons Gerard and Jeremy, a pianist, from the second.