Usher Hall, 15/5/2026
Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Nicola Benedetti (Violin), Kirill Karabits (Conductor)
On a nice evening in May, the Edinburgh audience came in their thousands to the Usher Hall for a spectacular concert given by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by the Ukrainian, Kirill Karabits. The hall was packed to capacity, with even the organ Gallery full. Was this an extraordinary gathering of Elgar and Stravinsky fans? Well, maybe, but perhaps the presence of a certain Scottish fiddler may have explained the turnout. The blessed Nicola Benedetti was playing her first concert with the RSNO since her maternity leave, and wow! Did she deliver! The Benedetti factor is an amazing phenomenon, and we are truly fortunate to have one of the world’s finest violin players here in Scotland.
The concert started with a piece by the Azerbaijani composer, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, entitled ‘Nagillar’, dating from 2002. The word means Fairy Tales, and the work is inspired by the famous 1001 Nights, the story of a magic carpet and heroic adventures. It has been championed in the UK by tonight’s conductor, Kirill Karabits, and was an interesting opening to the concert. It’s an atmospheric work for large orchestra, with a huge percussion section, and showed off the RSNO’s versatility. At 14 minutes, it perhaps over-extended itself, as its harmonic structure seemed unvarying, but at least it produced plenty of exotic sounds and kept the percussion section busy.
Next came what a large portion of the audience had come to see and hear – Nicola Benedetti playing the Elgar Violin Concerto. Surprisingly, it is a concerto I had never heard live, and despite the immaculate playing, it is a problematic work. Firstly, it is very long, coming in at a little under 50 minutes, requiring great stamina both from soloist, orchestra and audience. Also, it is strangely lacking in recognisable melodies, and given that Elgar was famous for his catchy tunes and grand sweeping phrases, one did feel a little short-changed. Indeed as the third movement wore on, there was, at least for me, a feeling that it might never end.
That said, Ms Benedetti played like a goddess. Wearing a black, off-the-shoulder jump suit with heels, she looked every inch the great virtuoso, and her deeply emotional and technically flawless playing was a joy to behold. Elgar asked a huge amount from his soloist in this 1910 concerto, written for the superb violinist, Fritz Kreisler, and benefitting from the advice of W H Reed, the leader at the time of the London Symphony Orchestra, who played at the premiere, conducted by the composer. I sang several times as soloist with the LSO, under Sir Colin Davis, in the 1990s and I can attest to their continuing mastery, although I now think that the present day RSNO are at least their equals. As I wrote above, the concerto is something of a marathon, and the audience reaction at the end was truly rapturous. Ms Benedetti has it all, with a seemingly perfect technique allowing her to play the cascades of notes in all the movements, and yet when a legato line is needed, her breadth of tone and sweetness of sound filled the hall with beauty. Some of her apparently impossible high notes were played with a purity and warmth I have never heard before. Playing the 1717 Gariel Stradivarius obviously helps, and it is quite wonderful to hear such an old and renowned instrument played so well. I was once on a singing engagement in Cremona, and I remember the sense of awe wandering those old streets, imagining the workshops of Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati, all producing instruments which would last and still be the best over 400 years later!
The famous cadenza of the Elgar Concerto, played not solo but with an unusual thrumming sound in the strings, was beautifully judged, and the whole concerto was sympathetically accompanied by the RSNO and Kirill Karbits. I always think that when we don’t notice a conductor particularly in a concerto, they are doing a great job.
In the work after the interval, the ballet music from Igor Stravinsky’s ‘The Firebird’, Mr Karabits was much more evident, and he gave us a masterful reading of the score.
We heard the complete ballet music, lasting about 45 minutes, rather than the more usual suite which Stravinsky extracted from the full score for orchestral concerts. Every note of this wondrous score is fabulous, and actually, at 45 minutes, time passed quickly, as the tale of the Firebird and its miraculous powers were presented across the full palette of the RSNO.
What occurred to me during the performance was the whole Russian feel of the piece. This was a very early demonstration of Stravinsky’s enormous genius, and one hears instantly the influence of his teacher and mentor, Rimsky-Korsakov, whose own works are steeped in Russian folklore and exotic melodies. The first night of the ballet, presented by Sergei Diaghelev’s Ballets Russes in Paris on 20th June 1910, must have been earth-shattering for the audience, as the 28 year old composer unleashed his music for the first time on a major stage. Stravinsky’s music was seriously different from anything before it, although the wild stuff was yet to come with The Rite of Spring, which famously caused a ‘near riot’, three years later.
Kirill Karabits really came into his own in this work, and from a slightly stately start, he released his full Bernstein impression towards the end. Not that it was at all showy, but he gave his heart and soul to the performance, and coaxed playing of magnificence from the RSNO. Beautiful cameos came from David Hubbard on bassoon, Tom Dunn on viola, Maya Ivabuchi on violin, and, inevitably, from Amadea Dazeley-Gaist on horn.
I have always loved the ending of The Firebird, and it was gloriously played here, sweeping everyone up in its glorious triumphal outpouring. As we used to say after an opera performance – “Bravi Tutti!” Jolly well done, everybody!
Photo credit: Sally Jubb