When you think of a violin recording, particularly with an artist as vibrant as Nicola Benedetti, you’re probably thinking of violin and piano or violin and orchestra, but in Violin Café, Benedetti turns the tables on our expectations.
Nicola Benedetti (photo by Franz Galo)
The accompanying performers on her recording include guitarist Plínio Fernandes, accordionist Samuele Telari, cellist Thomas Carroll, and violinist Yume Fujise (on one track), and the exceptional surprise of Scottish smallpipe player Brìghde Chaimbeul.
The music is a wonderful mix of sweetness and sentimentality, visions of the past and virtuosity in playing. For Benedetti, this choice of instruments places her in the middle of a café, with the ability to cross genres as the spirit moves her.
She opens with Henryk Wieniawski’s Polonaise, Op 4. Written in 1848 by the 13-year-old violin virtuoso and published in 1858 as the Polonaise Brillante, the work has entered the violin repertoire as a consummate showpiece. In most hands, this would be the encore piece, so to start with this in her Violin Café shows just how many different places to explore lie ahead for us!
Henryk Wieniawski: Polonaise, Op. 4
The arrangement, with accompaniment of violin, guitar, accordion, and cello, is perfectly voiced to both support the violinist’s highest extravaganzas and to give the other instruments their own quiet places to sound their voices.
More classics follow later in the recording, including Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25, but what becomes a familiar theme across the recording are Benedetti’s explorations of the music of Ernest Bloch, in a selection from Scenes from Jewish Life. We also have a very strong Scottish influence in Peter Maxwell Davies’ Farewell to Stromness, Op. 89, No. 1 and even more in the three tracks Benedetti recorded with Brìghde Chaimbeul: Skye Boat Song, A’ choille ghruamach (The gloomy forest), and Hacky Honey Reel. Benedetti’s ability to sound over the drone of the pipes brings the Scottish elements in her playing to the fore and is a delight to hear in her hands.
Estrellita by Manuel Ponce is followed by Sarasate’s Navarra, where Benedetti is joined by violinist Yume Fujise for a performance that turns on the two players’ joy in playing the music and bouncing off each other’s excitement at the work.
Pablo de Sarasate: Navarra, Op. 33
Benedetti says in her notes to the album that, in many ways, this recording is ‘a gift for audiences I have known and been supported by for over 22 years’. Benedetti’s love for not only classical music but also music from a variety of sources is excellently exhibited, and her choice of a café-style accompaniment really brings out the fun side of much of this music. It’s only right that the Carmen Fantasy should have guitar and accordion accompaniment!
Nicola Benedetti: Violin Café
Decca 00028948715749
Release date: 21 November 2025
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