Aye, It's Another Bonnie Lass

I suppose one of the great plagues of the modern world is that of "declining standards". We see it everywhere - in our politics, in our schools, and even in our media where the network news is starting to look more and more like the Howard Beale Show everyday. So what does any of this have to do with anything?

Not much, really. I just thought I'd mention it before I take a second or two to talk about Nicola Benedetti. You never heard of her? That's because you don't follow classical violinists. She's the sultry, dark-haired, italianesque beauty from Scotland who has been bandied about certain musical circles as the next "big" thing. Go to Amazon.com and you'll find both of her CD releases rated "5 stars", although in reality she's only been reviewed 3 times. I could talk about Amazon ratings, but I'll leave that for another posting (do you think publicists and record company folks have anything to do with those reviews? Some of them read like marketing copy).

Anyways, I think we have Vanessa Mae to blame for all this. Mae proved the point that if photogeneic but marginally talented pop stars could make it big in the pop world, then photogenic but marginally talented classical musicians can also make it big in the classical world. Unfortunately, all Mae has done is open the floodgates and now young, photogenic, (mostly) female musicians are everywhere. Do you think that Janis Joplin, an attractive but not photo-model pretty singer of the sixties, would even be allowed to take the stage the way the music business is run today?

So into all this comes Nicola Benedetti. 5 stars not withstanding, both of her CD's are available for streaming on the Rhapsody music service, so I gave them a listen. My conclusion? Simple. Put this one back in the oven folks 'cause she ain't ready yet. Not that DG isn't eager to shove her out there and capitalize on her while she's still hot, but she's just not in the same league as the top players, and that's just a plain fact.

The piece that first brought her to people's attention is the Szymanowski Violin Concerto No. 1. Go over to Rhapsody and give it a listen and see what you think. I'll tell you what I think. Beneditti reminds me an awful lot of another violinist I don't particularly care for - Rachel Barton Pine. She has that same thing that Pine has, which I guess you'd call a lack of flow (being an older man, I know quite a bit about lack of flow).

Benedetti can be breezing along quite nicely, and then, all of a sudden, she loses her momentum. It's like she says to herself "oh God, let me just get through this boring part so that I can get to the really good part later on", and she just phones it in for a while. Rachel Barton Pine does the same thing, and let me tell ya, it's very ANNOYING. I like the piece to start at the beginning and continue smoothly to the end, not lurch back and forth along the way.

Benedetti shows the same problem in her Mendelssohn -really nice moments interspersed with clumsy wooden ones. You would think someone would take her aside and say "look, maybe you need to work on that part a little more", instead of "Great job, honey, just fantastic. By the way, your hair looks marvelous." Declining standards, I guess.

Well, all I can say is that if you're one of those people who buys CD's so they can drool over the cover shot, then I got another one for you.