Arts & Events

When you open a violin recital with the magnificent but notoriously difficult Chaconne from J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 2 for Solo Violin in D minor, you’re making a doubly bold and incautious move. First, you need to get the Bach Chaconne right, which is no easy task, or else you risk undercutting the recital from the outset. Second, if you play the Bach Chaconne successfully, what can you possibly offer the audience after this summa cum laude of works for violin? Happily, in her recital of Sunday, January 27 at Zellerbach Hall, Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti answered both of these issues with a superb – and superbly planned -- recital, which also featured her long-time collaborator Alexei Grynuk on piano. Suffice it to say that in this recital Nicola Benedetti scored hit after hit, beginning with Bach but also including Prokofiev, Wynton Marsalis, and Richard Strauss.  

I have heard Nicola Benedetti before, most recently last Valentine’s Day when she performed with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Paramount Theatre. At that concert, I was impressed with her performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Interestingly, in the Beethoven I was most impressed with Ms. Benedetti’s handling of the extremely high tessitura of the Larghetto. With this in mind, nothing in that earlier concert prepared me for the sumptuous beauty I heard now in the Bach Chaconne in Nicola Benedetti’s tone in the lower register of her instrument, a Gariel Stradivarius of 1717. I don’t think I have ever heard a richer, more sumptuous lower register tone from any other contemporary violinist, and that includes my highly regarded Bach interpreter Hilary Hahn. Nicola Benedetti not only has the technical chops to give a riveting performance of Bach’s famous Chaconne, but she also enveloped this outerstellar music in the richest, most luxuriant tone! The effect was compelling, especially when the plangent lower register was offset by the gossamer notes of the very top of the violin’s register. 

After this auspicious start, the program next offered Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano in D Major, Op. 94a. First completed in 1943 as a Sonata for Flute and Piano, this work immediately attracted attention of violinists, who persuaded Prokofiev to make an adaptation for violin. Thus, Prokofiev premiered his Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano in 1944, and it has gone on to achieve more fame as a violin sonata than as a flute sonata. Performed here by Nicola Benedetti on violin and Alexei Grynuk on piano, this sonata opened in a lyrical, almost wistful, vein. A second subject offered more agitation. The second movement was a virtuosic scherzo, and the third movement, an Andante, provided Nicola Benedetti and Alexei Grynuk with ample opportunities for expansive lyricism. The closing Finale was a playful rondo based on the dancing melody of the violin’s opening measures. All told, in the capable hands of Nicola Benedetti and Alexei Grynuk, this Prokofiev sonata came across as one this composer’s sunniest, most accessible works. 

After intermission, Nicola Benedetti turned to the work of her close friend Wynton Marsalis. Known foremost as a jazz trumpeter, Wynton Marsalis has also compiled an impressive discography of classical recordings of music for trumpet. Perhaps less well known, Marsalis also composed in 2015 a Violin Concerto for Nicola Benedetti. Marsalis and Benedetti, close friends who find mutual inspiration in each other’s work, here teamed up as Benedetti performed Marsalis’s 2018 work, Fiddle Dance Suite for Solo Violin. In this piece, Marsalis, born and raised in New Orleans, takes the Creole tradition of Arcadian Scottish fiddle music and gives it a new twist. This suite opens with a reel, a dance style popular in New Orleans. Especially beautiful was the second movement of this suite, a wistful lullaby, gorgeously played by Nicola Benedetti. Then came a jig, followed by a traditional Scottish dance. The finale was an old-fashioned barn-dance, complete with hoe-down fiddling from Nicola Benedetti. Interestingly, this piece by Wynton Marsalis worked superbly as a mixture of Celtic roots, classical style, and jazzy overtones. 

To round out this intelligently varied program, the final work performed was the Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat Major, Op. 18, by Richard Strauss. Composed in 1887-8, this sonata reveals the classical training Richard Strauss assimilated before he began assaulting all classical models in his revolutionary works around the turn-of-the-century. As this piece opens, a heroic proclamation from the piano asserts itself forcefully. The violin answers supportively, but without emphasis. Next the violin offers a high, lyrical contrasting theme, elegantly performed here by Nicola Benedetti. A second movement starts out as a violin melody that is achingly sweet. Through many variations, this melody is elaborated. The finale revives the bold, quasi-symphonic style of the opening movement, culminating in a fiery coda.  

As an encore, as if one were needed in such a recital, Nicola Benedetti and Alexei Grynuk performed the gorgeous Intermezzo from the opera Thais by Jules Massenet.