Customer Reviews

Nicola Benedetti Plays Szymanowski, Chausson, Saint-Saëns

5 star:		(3)
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Five BLAZING Stars!! Award-winning Scottish violin prodigy Nicola Benedetti continues her rise in musical maturity and expansiveness with these dazzling performances. In her debut CD, the teen phenom displays awesome talent, patience, and determination in presenting one of her favorite award-winning programs, among other sterling performances. And she is BRILLIANT. Daniel Harding and the London Symphony Orchestra are no less brilliant in providing stunning support to this rising star. This is truly awe-inspiring, highly introspective music.

The 'Pieces De Resistance' begin with a sensational 10 minute "Havanaise in E for Violin and Orchestra" by Saint-Saens, which allows her to both show off her brilliant technique and produce bowed fireworks. This is followed by a blazing performance of the work which she performed when she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year award, a truly wonderful and complex Szymanowski "Violin Concerto No 1" with breathtaking support from the LSO. Also check out her spectacular 'soliloquies' during Chausson's "Poeme for Violin and Orchestra, Op 25", so exposed and so brilliant. The world premier of "Fragment for the Virgin", written by Sir John Tavener for Nicola is performed so poignantly as she shows her awesome control using the portamento technique. "It Ain't Necessarily So" is pure convoluted gratuitous enjoyment for her and us. Look up prodigy in the dictionary and you'll see "Nicky" pictured there. Highly Recomended! Five BLAZING Stars!!!

(Notes:
*Track 9. Meditation from Thais - Massenet is the LSO background track without Nicola's violin.
*Track 10. The sizzling "It Ain't Necessarily So" from "Porgy & Bess" (Recorded Live At Angel Studios) is a Bonus Track, only available from ITunes.
*Trivia: Nicola plays a 1751 Petrus Guarnerius of Venice violin.
*This review is based on a 10 track ITunes Music Store download with 3 page digital booklet.)

This is one of the best albums I've listened to in some time. Fantastic! It's just great. At last, a new young violinist who has higher aspirations than to add one more recording of the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius concerti to the pile. Benedetti has chosen a stunning program here; each piece is quite different from the next, and she traverses an impressive range of expression with them. Her playing is poignant and assured, and she is possessed of a sophisticated artistry well beyond her years.

The Szymanowski is one part Debussy, one part Bartók, combining kaleidoscopic, non-functional harmonies with Eastern, modal flavor. It's a sprawling, fascinating piece, distinctive and unique -- one you'll return to, and want to hear other recordings of, as well. The Brahms Contemplation (an transcription of one of his lieder by Fritz Kriesler), the Massanet Meditation, the Saint-Saëns Havanaise, and the Taverner Fragment are all gorgeous, and played beautifully; and the Chausson Poème, perhaps my favorite piece on the disc, drew a tear... it's so beautiful as read here.

You're in for a real treat with this one. Still a teenager, Benedetti of course doesn't present this music with the sage wisdom of years; but that fact really only adds to her achievement here. If she's capable of this caliber of playing already, it excites me just to think of where she'll be in a decade, or in two. I'm eagerly awaiting her subsequent releases.

To find such skill in someone so young is wonderful. These are some difficult pieces, beautifully played.

The Szymanowski is an interesting piece. Like Korngold's violin concerto but not as korny. And a little weird too. My advice to the violinist at the end of the concerto is: Play the violin. As it was meant to be played. Not like triangles. Her approach here is way too soft. The littleness is too pronounced and it has to be more mysterious