Nicola Benedetti had a grand total of half-an-hour's rehearsal time with the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Valery Gergiev before hopping on a plane to Edinburgh.
They'll meet up again, briefly, this afternoon before performing Szymanowski's First Violin Concerto at the Usher Hall tonight.
It will be Benedetti's International Festival debut and the orchestra's first appearance of a four-concert residency.
For the LSO, this is standard practice: they're one of the busiest orchestras in the world and well-accustomed to working whirlwind schedules. And for Benedetti? She doesn't seem the least bit worried. In fact, over morning coffee yesterday she was chatty, relaxed – and hinted that tonight's performance might turn out to be something rather special.
"We didn't really talk during the rehearsal," she explains. "We just played. This is the first time I've ever worked with Gergiev but I could instantly tell that his musical intelligence is at a level far greater than most people I will ever come across. You can pick up on it when you hear his concerts, but to stand next to him playing a piece he hasn't conducted for 25 years? It's a true honour to play with someone like that."
She describes it as "something that happens on an almost spiritual level when you play with such musicians – something that you couldn't possibly put into words. Yesterday's rehearsal had that in abundance. It was one of the best rehearsals I've ever had." And that was just the first run-through. What's left for tonight, then? "I only have to trust Gergiev. Having that kind of connection with someone gives me so much freedom."
Szymanowski's concerto is where it all really began for Benedetti when she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition back in 2004. Since then she's recorded the piece and performed it regularly – so much so that its sweeping, sensuous soundworld has helped to define her own characteristically full-blooded violin sound. Does she feel her interpretation has changed over the years? "In every way that I've changed as a player," she asserts. "My tone has developed, my technique has adjusted, my physical approach to playing has grown. I experiment all the time – it's part of evolving as a player."
Altogether Benedetti seems to be on particularly good form. She speaks her mind, direct and cheerful. She laughs a lot. It's been a busy year for her. "I've done a phenomenal amount of work," she says, "probably more than ever before, but there's something about performing quite so much that makes me feel more at peace with the whole thing. Of course there will be highlights and low points, of course everything will be talked about and analysed and praised and criticised by the media. But being able to put all of that to one side and just being calm about the progress I'm making – it's taken me a while to get there, but I would say that I'm really there."
Nicola Benedetti plays Szymanowski's First Violin Concerto with the LSO and Valery Gergiev at the Usher Hall tonight.
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