Benedetti adds another string to bow

Published on Monday 5 May 2008 10:38

Finale! Brilliant Benedetti: RSNOFestival Theatre **** HAVING read reports of problems and subsequent cancellations, it was good to see a radiant Nicola Benedetti welcomed back to the Festival Theatre by a large audience.

The evening's programme followed an overture-concerto-symphony plan that used to be commoner than it is nowadays.

In the course of two substantial revisions of his overture, Mendelssohn tried a few different titles before settling on The Hebrides. It was the piano duet arrangement that was published as Fingal's Cave. Maestro Denve opened with a tempo which, in terms of the composer's instruction, was more moderato than allegro. There were some splendid moments. Alternation of woodwind and strings in a development of the opening theme was exemplary, and the return of the second subject was magically set off by principal clarinetist John Cushing.

Undoubtedly, because she performed Szymanowski's first violin concerto to win the 2004 Young Musician of the Year, Benedetti has come to be closely associated with it. Her account was perceptive and unfailingly musical. Szymanowski commented that there are "perhaps three or four bars" in which it is difficult to hear the solo part. All participants saw to it that there were not many more than that.

Beethoven's seventh symphony calls for exceptionally high intensity of rhythmic energy. The restless, surging impetus of the music has to be sustained for long periods. Cellos and double basses fell short of that requirement at times, and the trumpets struggled to balance their sound with players around them.