Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 31 March 2010

Nicola Benedetti (Photo - Simon Fowler - Universal)

AT THE outset, let me admit that I was not in the best frame of mind to enjoy this performance by Nicola Benedetti and a couple of her friends. I had heard on the grapevine that she was giving a pre-concert talk, although I had received nothing official about this bonus part of the event.

Whoever was responsible for the marketing of the tour should have ensured that her talk was properly publicised – even if only by mentioning it on the ticket. But it was my own fault that I forgot about it and turned up at Eden Court too late to get in to hear her chat about her violin, the Earl Spencer Stradivarius, and her attitude to how she practiced.

Friends told me that she spoke well and came over as a down-to-earth lass who has not been affected by all the fame that has enveloped her over the past six or seven years.

Then I thought I had better get a programme so I could learn something about the ‘friends’ whose names meant nothing to me, Leonard Elschenbroich, the cellist, and pianist Alexei Grynyuk. Five pounds! And that for a publication that was useless on the night as the print contrast made it unreadable in the subdued light of the theatre auditorium.

When will the graphic artists who design these commercial souvenirs destined for the bin climb down from their ivory towers and see how ordinary people struggle to cope with the glossy trash that they have produced?

It wasn’t until the following morning that I was able to have a good look at the thing, and found it no more than adverts and a load of anodyne verbiage with so many printing errors that the proof readers should have their fee withheld. Even though £1 from each programme sold was going to the nominated charities, CLIC Sargent, Big Noise in Rapploch and Practice-a-thon Music, the words ‘rip’ and ‘off’ sprung to mind.

And so, for me, La Benedetti and her chums had a conversion job on their hands. For the rest of the full house hanging from the top shelf all the hype that has surrounded her since winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition back in 2004 had already done the job, judging by the applause that greeted her as she strode out onto the stage for the first of seven concerts in eight days, swathed in a satin gown of burnt tangerine, with Alexei Grynyuk trotting obediently behind.

So what about the music? It got off to a flying start with Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen, a piece of virtuosic violin music in true gypsy style which suited Benedetti’s gutsy manner and attack. If you wanted finesse you would have been looking in the wrong place, but that is how Sarasate made his living and our Scottish heroine is following in his legendary footsteps.

Slightly more delicate, but not a lot, was Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise, which managed to hint at the range of styles we can expect from Ms Benedetti, although on occasion I found her measure of vibrato slightly suspect and her in-your-face emotional style a bit heavy.

The first half of the concert was brought to an end by one of the most beautiful violin sonatas of them all, that by the Belgian Cèsar Franck, composed as a wedding present for his friend and colleague Eugène Ysaÿe, who immediately gave its first performance at the matrimonial ceremony.

Subsequently others have arranged it for almost every instrument imaginable, including the tuba – now, that would be an experience! – but the only one to get Franck’s approval was the one for the cello. There are hints of the main them in the earlier movements, and then in the finale it really takes over in all its glory.

That’s twice in a week that I have been at a performance of the piece and they were so different. Nicola’s full on, superstar interpretation, ideal for a happy occasion such as a wedding, or the other more measured, more contemplative reading – I can’t decide which I preferred. In any case, that main theme was being hummed universally as the audience went out for their interval, so it must have met with general approval.

The second half opened with an extra item that turned the wheel full circle from the time seven years ago when Nicola Benedetti made a guest appearance at Eden Court with the Scottish Ensemble and performed a Mozart Violin Duet with Clio Gould. This time Nicola Benedetti was the hostess and her guest was the young fiddler Emma Donald from Dingwall (Emma is currently at Dingwall Academy and is going to study music at Edinburgh University this September). Together they played the Charles Grant tune Mrs Jamieson’s Favourite to great appreciation. Quite charming!

Then it was back to the programme, or nearly, with the three musicians in piano trio format. We were treated to an extra movement from the Mendelssohn Piano Trio No 1 in D minor, followed by the final Presto from Beethoven’s D major Piano Trio, known as “Ghost” because of the nature of the middle movement, the Largo, which we did not hear. A pity because it is a lovely passage, but maybe slightly too long for a concert primarily comprising bite-sized pieces of music.

Time for the solo spots from Nicola’s friends, starting with cellist Leonard Elschenbroich playing the Andante from the G minor Cello Sonata by Rachmaninoff with confidence and consideration. For his showpiece, pianist Alexei Grinyuk chose the Vladimir Horowitz arrangement of Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No 2, full of fireworks and always a crowd pleaser, as long as you get all the notes right, which he did.

The end of this long concert was in sight as Benedetti returned to play the three movements of Tchaikovsky’s Op 42 Souvenir d’un lieu cher, regarded by many as the little cousin to his Violin Concerto and written at roughly the same time – indeed the opening movement Meditation was originally intended as the first movement of the Concerto.

Looking back, for me this was the highlight of the concert, and Benedetti’s strong delivery was convincing, especially during the beautiful Melody which, unusually, was played as the middle of the work rather than the finale.

Ravel provided the last piece in the programme, his gypsy-styled showpiece Tzigane in which, once again, Nicola Benedetti was able to display her technique to the full. As the star of her own show in her home country, an encore was inevitable, even if the applause had started to subside before it was offered. Equally inevitably, it was Nicola Benedetti’s trademark piece, Meditation from Thaôs by Massenet.

So, was I converted? It was impossible not to be carried away by the enthusiasm of the audience and it does the soul no harm every so often to be entertained by an evening of pot-boilers. I went home having enjoyed the evening, which was about an hour longer than most classical recitals, but worried about what effect this sort of event has on the broader classical music scene.

I do not begrudge Nicola Benedetti her success – she has worked hard to get where she is – but she is still early in her career and her playing still has a long way to go before it is fully developed. The same can be said for the friends who shared the stage with her. Six years ago a photogenic local girl won the most high profile music competition in the UK on the first time the finals were staged in Scotland.

Since then, the marketing muscle of Universal Classics and IMG Management has taken over so that a very good, but still developing, artist can attract Full House notices and an audience paying top dollar that, for the most part, does not bother to support artists who are far more accomplished, both technically and musically, who travel to Inverness to give far superior performances with ticket prices only a fraction of what they were happy to pay on here.

In the current economic climate, with great pressure on funding for the arts, we must give much more support to live concerts or we are at risk of being left with only mass-market, commercially viable, universally popular music, and that is what this concert was all about.

© James Munro, 2010

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