Nicola Benedetti and friends, Perth Concert Hall
★★★★
THERE’S a fine line between generosity of programming and over-provision, over-egging the pudding; and in the three-hour concert with which Nicola Benedetti and her band launched their 11-concert UK tour in Perth on Thursday night (it comes to the Glasgow on the 29th) the celebrated violinist trod that line. That’s a minority opinion, but it felt to me like a Vivaldi too far.
Her terrific band is hand-picked, and includes friends from the Venice Baroque Orchestra and a hit-team of principals from the Scottish orchestras, including violists Tom Dunn and Scott Dickinson (RSNO and BBC SSO) cellist Alexei Kiseliov (RSNO) and bassist Nikita Naumov (SCO): along with Benedetti and cellist Leonard Elschenbroich (Nicola’s other half) a veritable supergroup. Their playing was phenomenal, from the enthralling, big-canvas and increasingly-riveting version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, to a scorching culmination, in an Italy-themed programme, with a blistering performance of the sextet version of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence.
In addition to that rich, Italianate mix, there was a dash of something new from Mark-Anthony Turnage, who, commissioned by Benedetti and Elschenbroich to produce a new violin and cello duet, to enrich that repertoire, came up with Duetti d’amore: five love duets, fascinating and unsentimental character studies that, in the composer’s words, “celebrate Nicola and Leonard as a couple”.
So far, so generous: and an already-substantial programme, with much to discuss from that extraordinary Four Seasons. But the inclusion of Vivaldi’s Grosso Mogul Concerto, apart from being an obvious display-piece, rather over-extended and spoiled the focus of the programme for me: not a lone moan; it was a hot topic in Perth the following night.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here