Nicola Benedetti featured in Reader's Digest UK
Nicola Benedetti’s new album “Baroque” is out now on Decca Classics (Photo credit: Craig Gibson)
Interview: Nicola Benedetti
By Eva Mackevic
Reader’s Digest
July 15, 2021
The superstar violinist on her love of baroque, the complexities of music education and social media anxieties
Reader's Digest: Tell us about your new album—what made you decide to explore Italian baroque?
Nicola Benedetti: Most people learning to play the violin or any orchestral instrument for that matter will have some exposure to a movement of Bach or a Handel sonata. But the extent, density, and depth of Italian Baroque, and how significant, shocking and inventive it was is just amazing.
I didn’t really go to another level of appreciation for the music until I started working with [conductor and harpsichordist] Andrea Marcon and touring with the Venice Baroque Orchestra. For me, the experiences with music that have had a real deep impact were connected to certain personalities and certain people whom I have found to be as infectious as the music—and Andrea was one of them.
RD: You were directing a new ensemble of individuals on the album. Did that make you nervous?
NB: I was pretty nervous because I could have partnered with a number of different groups who have a language that they already speak together. For example, if they see a certain phrase that looks a certain way, they will already understand how they’re going to play that. It’s very instinctual and it happens within an already formed group that has been built up over decades.
I could have done that, but I just feel that it’s a time for a lot of new things. It’s a time to embrace the discomfort that comes with exposing yourself to situations that you wouldn’t have put yourself in otherwise. It’s scary and it was just important for me to take that step.
RD: Did any big revelations flow out of that experience?
NB: I say it to myself every single time I listen to my recordings: “I should have just done more. I should have just done more.” I think that I never ever listen to myself playing and think, I know that that was a little bit too grotesque, or that was a little bit over the top. I never think that. I always think, I played quite timid. I think that it just comes with years, the boldness. I’m certainly a lot bolder than I was four years ago, for example. The goal is that you learn and you develop and want to change.
RD: Did you experience moments of self-doubt during the recording process?
NB: Absolutely. But the album was put together quite quickly so that meant that there wasn’t a huge amount of time for me to overthink it. But also, you have a relationship to music that is built up over such a long period of time. I didn’t start considering how I played Italian baroque music yesterday. I’ve been considering it for years. And that accumulates over the years and it strengthens.
And the other thing is, when the music starts, there is no other style of music that gets inside my bones and inside my heart quicker. I find it to be so overwhelmingly infectious, that by the time we get going, I’m not really sitting there thinking, what is this and what is that.
Baroque by Nicola Benedetti is out now on Decca Classics.
The Benedetti Baroque Orchestra performs eight live concerts of music featured on the album at Battersea Arts Centre’s Grand Hall from July 18-21.