SCO & Nicola Benedetti, Edinburgh review: 'a tiger loosed'

Nicola Benedetti´s great talent is as a storyteller, an architect who balances the telling of her musical journeys with intense sweetness swerving into a fierce, gut-jolting energy. Whatever the concerto, she listens, colludes and builds dialogue. Here, conductor Maxim Emelyanychev´s restrained, low-vibrato classical introduction to Brahms’ Violin Concerto met a thoroughly modern solo entry, the sense of a tiger loosed, claws drawn.

Benedetti’s driving romanticism powered the orchestra into an immediate response, and a wonderful dialogue began. Her cadenza seemed to unfold as a history of the violin itself: Bach-like purity at the start, all kinds of virtuosic tangles and rushes, slithering harmonic progressions, then, as the orchestra crept in like fearful shadows, a reiteration of the work´s first theme, played with a silvered beauty which could only belong to a composer in love with his chosen instrument.

The slow movement began as though Benedetti was exploring a folk melody reflecting Jose Masmano Villa’s lovely, understated opening oboe solo. The conversation between them continued, unhurried and gentle, but occasionally it seemed as if the players were listening so intently that any sense of chamber music was lost in introspection. Then the tiger roared back as the last movement erupted into a rollicking dance.

This concerto is a symphonic work - great surges of warmth from a full string section function as an enveloping hug of romantic affection. Here, with a chamber orchestra, perhaps we had more sense of music shared, of more translucence.

Tempo and radical changes of colour are a matter of personal taste. Mendelssohn´s Symphony No. 3, also known as the composer’s Scottish Symphony, describes landscape and bad weather; a wonderful evocation of a country - our country - which the composer held as precious. The danger with Emelyanychev´s highly individual approach, however, is that the evocation veers into pastiche. Whatever, the finale was tremendous, a terrific blaze of virtuosic sounds greeted with delighted applause.

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