Nicola Benedetti featured in Financial Times
Nicola Benedetti: ‘Classical music is like a novel, not a tweet’
By Griselda Murray Brown
Financial Times
December 13, 2019
Nicola Benedetti scans the menu, unsure of what to order. The Scottish violinist had some trouble choosing a venue for our lunch, eventually settling on a Vietnamese restaurant close to her west London home. But it doesn’t feel like her local. “I wouldn’t say I’m integrated into my surroundings like I would be if I was here all the time,” she says. “I’m away so much.”
From her many album covers, I am used to seeing Benedetti — or Nicky, as she’s known to friends and colleagues — in sleeveless ball gowns, her long hair cascading over one shoulder. Today, she is wearing jeans and a black V-neck, with a silk scarf tying back her hair and gold hoop earrings. She flew in from Frankfurt this morning, having just played two concerts there. But if she’s tired, her face betrays no sign of it.
Benedetti, 32, is one of the world’s leading classical soloists; she plays a 300-year-old Stradivarius worth several million pounds. This year, she has given more than 60 concerts and countless masterclasses; in the coming months, she will perform in the UK, US, Germany, Sweden and France. Is it easy to maintain a routine, with so much traveling? “No,” she laughs. “And I think that’s the thing. Because I’ve never done anything else since I was 16, I’ve never fully seen from another perspective how irregular every single part of my life is.”
A waiter approaches to take our order. It is just past midday and we are the only customers in Saigon Saigon, which has dark wood panelling and slow-turning ceiling fans. For starters, we decide to share the vegetable spring rolls and the summer rolls with prawns and pork. Benedetti orders the vermicelli noodles with beef for her main course, politely insisting on an accompaniment of vegetables rather than the salad stipulated by the set menu. I opt for the stir-fry vegetables with plain rice.
The event that changed Benedetti’s life came in 2004, when she won the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year competition with a vividly detailed rendition of Szymanowski’s first violin concerto. The prize propelled her to instant fame. She had left the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin Music School outside London the year before, having moved there from the small town of West Kilbride, near Glasgow, aged 10.
Benedetti’s playing, like her manner, is both emotionally open and carefully calibrated. Just as the best actors make Shakespeare sound as intuitive as modern English, so Benedetti has the ability to move audiences unfamiliar with classical music to tears.
Neither of her parents read music or played an instrument. She first picked up the violin aged four, when her older sister, Stephanie — now violinist for the pop group Clean Bandit — decided she wanted to learn. Their father Gio, an Italian-born Scot who ran a dry cleaning business, was “a bit bamboozled by the whole thing”, she says. But her mother Francesca “saw that we both were quite good, quite quickly”. So the violin became their focus.
“She was not one to allow you to do 500 things,” Benedetti recalls. “If you showed an aptitude and a liking for something, you’d better do that thing. She did not let us do all that much else.” She pauses. “My mum wanted to play the piano desperately when she was a kid, but she didn’t even dare ask her mum, because she knew that they couldn’t afford it.”
Benedetti became a prodigy: by eight, she was leading the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain. At 29, she became the youngest recipient of the Queen’s Medal for Music. She has two permanent, visible scars on her neck from playing.
When we meet, she is in the process of launching the Benedetti Foundation, a music education charity that aims to support pupils and teachers with a series of workshops and “With Nicky” YouTube tutorials. It’s a cause she’s passionate about: one of the few world-class western musicians with working-class roots, she’s a board member of Sistema Scotland, an organisation — modelled on the El Sistema project established in Venezuela in the 1970s — that brings music tuition to children in disadvantaged communities.
Benedetti is unusually young to have set up a foundation, something more often associated with artists nearing the end of their careers. She says it requires a “phenomenal” amount of work — and sometimes it has to be done the same day as a performance. “I just give myself a cut-off time of 3pm to nap and switch to violin playing. I force myself to divorce any thoughts of [the foundation] and really get into Mozart, which is what I was playing [last night].”
She insists it’s not a difficult switch to make. “We all know what that feels like,” she says, her eyes glinting. “Suddenly, if you have something you’re so enthused about, you tap into another part of your mental self that you didn’t know was there, and it’s like a super version of you.”
I’m not sure I do know what that feels like, I admit. And surely it’s different when someone at the top of their field decides to take on a big additional job.
“Well, I think that’s what’s been an interesting analysis for me: what amount of actual time, versus clarity of thought — and composure and mental presence — do I need?” Practising a new piece for 10 hours a day is a slog, she explains; “you repeat, repeat, repeat”. But it’s different with pieces she’s played before: “things that have that weight of hundreds of hours of investment . . . there’s so much in you already that you can tap into, if you’re in the right state.”
Our starters and jasmine teas arrive. “And not only that,” Benedetti continues, undeterred, “I think if you’re the type that has an overactive mind — and I certainly am, I way overthink things — too much time spent on something can be detrimental.
“And the other thing is . . . ” She stops and waves a hand over the food. “Please feel free. I’m talking more than you; you just carry on eating.”
I follow the instruction. Our starters are as they should be: the spring rolls crunchy and slightly salty; the summer rolls fresh and delicate.
In the half-hour before she steps out on stage, she says, “what I’m trying to do is enlargen — is that a word? — enlarge my thoughts so I have the widest possible perspective. You’re trying to get to more clarity. A lot of the best performers, they’re accessing a state that isn’t analytical, it’s actually very instinctual.”
It’s “quite a trusting state”, she explains. It requires confidence, which is something Benedetti believes many young musicians lack — something she certainly struggled with.
From the age of 18 to 22, she was playing so many concerts she rarely felt prepared for each. “I was a bit lost with what I was doing,” she admits. “I always felt like I wasn’t good enough.” Talking to Benedetti now, the impression is of someone whose natural tendency towards self-criticism has been tempered by a hard-won self-belief.
Our main courses arrive. She eyes my side plate of baby corn, carrot rounds and wilted spinach sceptically. “That looks very small. Will that be enough?” I assure her it will be fine, but she doesn’t look convinced. Taking a mouthful of her vermicelli, she gasps, “Oh no! That was really stupid: I didn’t realise my noodles would be cold. Oh, well. What were we saying?”
I was about to ask her about the itinerant life of a soloist. Does it get lonely? “You are on your own a lot, without a doubt,” she agrees. But does she mind that? “No, as long as you don’t get into bad personal habits.” She is strict with herself about not spending too much time on her smartphone, for instance. We discuss Instagram: the pressure to keep up appearances; the nagging doubt that everyone else is having more fun. “Yes, viscerally you feel you’re missing out on something,” she agrees. “It incites a level of envy in people that is inescapable.” But I get the sense she isn’t really speaking from experience (she later admits she generally has her phone off, makes a list of what she needs to do on it, then turns it on and completes the list).
Over the course of our lunch, I begin to observe how Benedetti operates. Her warmth and openness is coupled with a friendly briskness, an awareness of her own boundaries — when speaking about herself, she uses the general “you” more than the personal “I” — and a practical, no-nonsense attitude to the obstacles life throws up.
Social media is a useful tool for someone, like her, “committed to communication and to change”. In her playing and teaching — even her online presence — she is driven by the desire to reach a wide audience. “I’m never satisfied with keeping it for a few people if I can maintain its quality and make it for everybody,” she explains — admitting that that is a “massive ‘if’ ”.
Does she enjoy being on stage? “When things are going well, I love it. I love it so much. When you have set yourself up for a certain challenge, and then, in real time, you are overcoming the challenge, making people feel a certain way — excitement, thrill, heartache. [It] is maybe the best feeling in the world.”
Her enthusiasm is infectious. When I let slip that I played the violin at school, her eyes light up. Do I still play? Why did I stop? What would convince me to take it up again? “London has quite a few orchestras of doctors, and lawyers, and journalists,” she suggests. “There’s probably one in your area.” Sitting across from her beaming at me, I am almost convinced; on my walk back to the station, I remember that I gave up for the good reason that I was a terrible violinist.
The restaurant has filled up a little. In the corner, two grey-haired businessmen are deep in conversation. A woman and a small boy take the table next to ours. She casts surreptitious glances at Benedetti as if trying to place her in her mind. The boy swings his legs and complains loudly about the food.
Benedetti became the first classical musician to have a UK pop chart hit since Nigel Kennedy with her 2012 film-inspired album The Silver Violin, which included the theme from Schindler’s List. Some critics deemed such recordings “twee” and “soft-centred”. But she doesn’t mind being called a populist. “When I was younger, I was forever saying things like, ‘It’s the packaging of classical music that’s wrong. If only it was presented in the right way, everybody would love it.’ ” She no longer believes that, however. “Classical music is long, complex. It’s like a novel, not a tweet.”
When it comes to Benedetti, more than other classical musicians, it is not just her playing that is being packaged but her image, too. But she felt no “significant pressure” to look alluring in photoshoots. “I don’t really adhere to the female victim position — whoever it is,” she says. “Women are awake; we can see what’s happening. I think, sometimes, we portray ourselves as being asleep and victims of stuff.”
What about #MeToo and the allegations against high-profile figures such as Charles Dutoit, the now ex-conductor of the Royal Philharmonic? (Dutoit has faced several accusations of sexual assault, which he denies.) Her response is matter-of-fact: “to be quite honest, there has not been a single story that’s been a surprise to anybody within the industry”. Has it made her look back on past interactions differently? “Yes, definitely. I’ve definitely had several things.” She pauses. “But the way I judge it for myself is, ‘Was I damaged by something?’ I’m not going to talk myself into thinking I was damaged, just because it fits a story of somebody else that says they were damaged. There can be so many things that are amazing about this movement, but so many things that are also negative.”
Before we met, I wanted to talk to Benedetti about female beauty and what she made of the idea that possessing it can be as much of a hindrance as a help. She has spent half her life in the public eye, and almost everything written about her refers to her looks. (To quote one interview: “Nicola Benedetti looks like an Italian screen goddess: think Sophia Loren, Monica Vitti and, latterly, Monica Bellucci. The eyes are almond-shaped and deep brown, the hair is thick and lustrous, the lips are full . . . ”) But I see now she has little interest in dwelling on such things — or at least, she knows better than to do so with a journalist.
“If you want my honest opinion, I don’t care at all. I don’t feel like it’s an insult to comment on how I look. But I don’t think, ‘Oh, wow, that’s so exciting, somebody wrote that they think I’m pretty.’ I’ve been really fortunate in how much of what has been written about me . . . ” She trails off. “Less so at the beginning, obviously, but nobody knew much about my playing, what I had to say . . . But I think I have been lucky, over the years, that I’ve managed to do interviews with lots of serious people that want to really talk about something.”
“Are you ladies finished?” Our waiter is back. Benedetti has barely touched her noodles, and my vegetables and rice — unmemorable and now cold — are only half-eaten. Yes, she tells him, we’re finished.
Before she leaves, I ask her about her latest recording: Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto and Fiddle Dance Suite, written by the American jazz trumpeter and composer especially for her. The concerto, for which she and Marsalis have received Grammy nominations, draws on the western canon from the Baroque era to today, as well as on Celtic, English and African-American folk music. The five-movement fiddle suite is made up of a reel, lullaby, jig, traditional strathspey and barn dance.
Benedetti and Marsalis have been friends since she was 17; Marsalis was himself a teenage prodigy. “He and I connect on a million different levels,” she says. “The concerto and the fiddle suite are such beautiful examples of someone that seeks the commonalities in cultures that seem far apart.” I wonder aloud if that describes her own project, too. “Oh, yes, absolutely. It’s so in alignment with what I look for in life. I’m constantly trying to see how we are similar; I’m not trying to see how we’re different.”
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