His teachers were fellow refugees. Eliyahu Rudiakov was a Russian pianist. Leo Kestenberg, a Busoni pupil, had been director of the Prussian Ministry of Culture through the Weimar Republic, a visionary who gave Berlin its modernist edge. In the white heat of Tel Aviv, Menahem acquired a universal span of musical styles.

Victory in a US piano competition put him on a fast career track. Leonard Bernstein called him "a genuine pianistic poet". Married by the Israeli Chief Rabbi Abraham Kook, he moved into the New York hotel inhabited by Artur Schnabel. A chance encounter with Daniel Guilet, Toscanini's concertmaster, and a cellist, Bernard Greenhouse, sparked an unusual chemistry. After a debut at the Tanglewood Festival, the trio criss-crossed the American continent, bringing chamber music to town      halls with the diligence of ordained missionaries. 

"We had to go by car because the fee was so low that we would never have broken even," he relates. "The contract said never more than 500 miles between concerts. Sometimes we drove 700 miles. We played seven concerts a week. After the concert nothing was open, so we ate potato chips from a vending machine. Nothing fazed us."

Like every good chamber ensemble, the trio argued all the time. When Guilet retired after 14 years, Isidore Cohen took his place. As their fame grew, Menahem was happy to shelter behind a collective identity. He credits his wife, Sara, with keeping him sane. "She would always say to me when there was some problem at home, ‘sorgt dich nicht — don't worry, go!' Without her support I would never have done what I have done."

He disbanded the trio five years ago, unwilling "to bring up another violinist", and was looking forward to time at home when the solo dates started to flow. "I never thought that I was known personally to the extent that I was," he says shyly. Top orchestras — the Concertgebouw, Paris, Berlin Philharmonic-booked him to play concertos. On the eve of his 90th birthday, two labels have issued solo recordings.

Listen to Menahem Pressler play Beethoven's 31st sonata (on Bis) or the Bagatelles (on La Dolce Vita) and, from the opening notes, you revert to a time before flashy playing and the fools of fame; a time when text was sacrosanct and sound was a reflection of a player's character. There is nothing extravert or impulsive about Menahem's playing. Each note is measured for its worth and comes up sounding refreshing. The listener emerges uplifted and reassured — elevated by eternal verities and comforted that, in this pair of hands, they somehow survive.