Nicola Benedetti

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the violinist Niccola Benedetti.

Presenter0:38

In the ten years since she won the BBC's Young Musician of the Year competition, her rise and one imagines her schedule has been relentless.

Presenter0:46

Countless professional plaudits, chart topping album sales, and an MBE in the New Year's honours list. She's twenty six. She picked up her first violin aged just four. By the time she was eleven none other than Yehudi Menuin had spotted her star talent. Only a year later she was to play at his memorial service.

Presenter1:06

Quite what her Italian immigrant parents made of all this will be interesting. Her father wasn't a classical music buff, spending his time making a success of his dry cleaning business. Her mum told her that she didn't have to play the violin, but if she was going to she may as well practise. It wasn't long before little Nicola was playing for hours on end every day.

Presenter1:26

She says now, When I teach seven-year-olds and they can play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I say that's amazing, well done.

Presenter1:33

And then occasionally my mum will remind me, Do you remember what you were playing at that age? Nicola, do you remember what you were playing at that age?

Nicola Benedetti1:40

At seven years old, my goodness. My teacher was, I guess, quite ambitious and and I was I was so keen to begin tackling repertoire that I was beginning to listen to other violinists. So Mozart concerto, I started Bruchviolin concerto and there's no way I sounded good at all playing it at that age. But I but I tried. So yeah, not twinkle twinkle.

Presenter2:05

And it was clear there from my introduction that you've achieved an enormous amount in a relatively short time. Critical renown, performances in the leading concert halls all over the world, huge record sales. I have to add to that, you do always look alluring on the covers of your C D's and you're looking rather splendid this morning as well. It all sounds like a big, glamorous, wonderful lung.

Nicola Benedetti2:19

Splendid this morning as well.

Nicola Benedetti2:24

Life.

Presenter2:25

Uh

Nicola Benedetti2:25

Is it?

Nicola Benedetti2:26

I would say that I'm consistently so grateful for the life I have. I get to interact with some of the greatest minds that have ever lived through pieces of music, through staring at those scores. I'm constantly getting an insight into some of the world's greatest creations. So that is an honour and a privilege that I never take for granted. Then there's the fact that I get to see the world and I learn so much from the people I'm surrounded by. But glamorous is definitely not a word I would associate with my life at all. Actually, photo shoots are probably my most hated days of the year. I try to make them literally once a year for one day. I would say possibly if you feel you've played well in a concert and then an audience, the conductor, the musicians on stage agree that together you've all created something great and there is a moment of euphoria at the end of a concert, that moment is so gratifying and I guess could maybe be a little glamorous.

Presenter3:32

Haha.

Nicola Benedetti3:32

Uh

Presenter3:32

In your choices today, we've asked you, as you know, to choose eight risks to take to your desert island. In choosing these today, how have you gone about it? What's been your criteria?

Nicola Benedetti3:40

It was so difficult. I barely knew where to start. I have a combination of a few very personal pieces of music and then.

Nicola Benedetti3:52

A few of them I just think are the greatest, and I thought I couldn't pass on the opportunity to have them exposed. Tell me about your first choice, then. What are we going to hear first off? The first is probably the darkest and the heaviest of all the pieces of music I've chosen. It's by Shostakovich. It's from his eighth symphony. It was written in 1943. His life story is so terrifying and of course that comes out in his music. I mean everything that he wrote that was really a self-expression uh could have ended his life and he lived in fear of that consistently and this movement is is uh terrifying from from the word go.

Presenter5:30

That was part of the third movement of Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony, played by the Leningrad Philharmonic, conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky. Um as I was watching you listening to that, there were a couple of moments there, Nicola Benedetti, where you seemed to be almost meditating.

Nicola Benedetti5:44

I just I can't get over the relentlessness of it. I I find it like nearly uh I find it kind of painful to listen to, as I think was possibly the intention.

Presenter5:53

Yes, when you are playing, you are, I've heard you say, this is so interesting, concentrating, not thinking.

Nicola Benedetti6:01

I'm trying not to think. I'm desperately trying not to think. The minute your thoughts start to formulate, they can distract you. If you imagine you're on stage for maybe between 25 to 45 minutes and you constantly have the lead part, the solo part, always technically very challenging. You're trying to be loud enough to soar above the orchestra all the time. There's so many things to keep control over that the minute you start thinking, it can be the beginning of the end. So I just try to stay in the moment and actually have as much of a spiritual experience as I possibly can. I'm trying to lift my whole being and my whole intention to the highest place that I can, and then allowing everything I'm doing physically to follow that.

Nicola Benedetti6:52

What? Perfect.

Presenter6:52

I understood it there, maybe for the first time. Let's talk for a moment about something called El Systema. It was a project that was started in Venezuela to encourage young and very underprivileged children to get involved in music. In Scotland, in Raploch, near Sterling, the same thing has been started there, and you've given up quite a lot of your time to be involved with it.

Nicola Benedetti6:55

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti7:10

And star

Nicola Benedetti7:13

I have, and I go and listen to the children whenever I can and teach them. What El Systema has demonstrated is what we all know to be true, and what has been documented so many times, but for some reason is still not listened to, is that if you give children quality experience with great music and a quality orchestral experience and creative experience, not only will it allow them an insight into great art and into great music, but it will affect every single part of their life, and that's from their communicative skills, their social skills, their ability to work together, their ability to express themselves.

Presenter7:57

And just to be clear, th this is in an environment where most of these young kids would never in a million years have been exposed to a classical instrument, to classical

Nicola Benedetti8:04

In mathematics.

Nicola Benedetti8:05

Classical music playing at home? In Raplock there was a history of one person playing a musical instrument before Big Noise landed on their door. They all love it. I mean the thing is children they want to be challenged. They don't want to be patronized and they want to have something to really hang on to and to know that is theirs and to know that is their achievement.

Presenter8:27

Let's have some more music, Nicola Benedetti. Tell me about your second choice of the morning.

Nicola Benedetti8:31

We're going to hear an aria performed by an amazing singer, René Fleming, one of my very, very favourite sopranos. The aria Marietta's lead is from an opera Dietotstaden written by Korn Gold. I planned an entire recording project around him and his work, A Fascinating Composer with a Fascinating Life Story, and this, I would say, is one of his masterpieces.

Speaker 48:58

Oh see the fellow

Speaker 49:09

Oh, to the Lord with me.

Presenter10:01

That was Rene Fleming singing Coringold Marietta's song from Die Totestad. So tell me, Nicola Benedetti, a little bit about your parents then, Gio and Francesca. They both came here as children from Italy. What sort of people? Were they as parents and are they now?

Nicola Benedetti10:17

I'm very lucky with the parents I have. Um my dad, he came over to Scotland when he was ten years old. He didn't see his mother for nearly a decade. Uh my mother, she came over with her parents when she was three years old and they settled in Scotland after that. She had an Italian mother and Scottish father. Um w we grew up listening to actually a lot of very popular music. I think the I think the Bee Gees and Abba were sort of our diet of music. It wasn't until we began to play instruments that classical music was introduced to our whole extended family and introduced to my parents.

Presenter10:53

And given that your parents weren't themselves musical or at least interested in classical music that much.

Nicola Benedetti10:57

Is

Presenter10:59

Why did you start?

Nicola Benedetti11:00

My older sister, Stephanie, she saw somebody play when she was about four years old. I was just born at that point, and she said to my mum, I want to play the violin. She fell in love with the sound, with the look, with everything about the instrument.

Nicola Benedetti11:13

Four years later, when I was old enough to also begin, my mum agreed to allow us both to start. It was very much a case of I would do anything my older sister did. I worshipped the ground she walked on and still do, and uh just followed in her footsteps.

Presenter11:28

And your dad was out working hard and had the entrepreneurial sort of immigrant spirit to make something of his life.

Nicola Benedetti11:29

And you

Nicola Benedetti11:35

Something of his life. My dad is one of the most fearless people you'll ever come across. He's really wonderful. Yes. So.

Presenter11:43

A warm, successful, burgeoning household with two energetic little girls, and you were were you spoiled?

Nicola Benedetti11:47

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti11:50

Actually, I think not at all. I mean, I think financially we were extremely comfortable, and my mother did everything she could to make sure that my sister and I got what we needed, but not everything we wanted. So there were many, many kids in our class getting many more things than my sister and I. I remember it was a great combination of strictness and love. And when I was seven or eight, I was actually accepted into the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland. I was asked to lead the orchestra, actually, and I was too young actually to enter the. But even something like that, which was clearly a sign of me doing well on the violin, my mum was never, oh, my gifted young child. She's never like that at all. She just kind of thought, well, you know, they're good at playing, and therefore treat that with respect and seriousness and with integrity, and don't abuse it. Work hard at it. That was her attitude. If she's willing to write a book, we will all.

Presenter12:47

Bias. Right. How to be appearance. Right. Um it's time for some music then, Nicola Benedetti. Tell me about your uh third disc of the morning.

Nicola Benedetti12:48

Okay.

Nicola Benedetti12:50

Uh

Nicola Benedetti12:56

The third choice is by possibly the only composer I would ever hint at saying was my is my favourite composer. That's Beethoven. This piece of music, the Archduke Trio, I studied and learnt for the first time with my regular trio partners, Leonard Elschenbruch and Alexegrinuk. This third movement provided me with one of the moments on stage where I was

Nicola Benedetti13:22

entirely over overwhelmed and overcome with emotion. As a professional musician, you have to have an element of detachment in order to be professional, but I think the the level and depth of love and understanding I suddenly had for what Beethoven had to say in in that moment was a a revelation and this piece to me just is sent from from the heavens.

Presenter14:56

That was part of the third movement from Beethoven's piano trio, The Archduke, was recorded live at the Cheltenham Festival last year. The players were Leonard Elchenbruch on cello, Alexei Grignuch on piano, and my castaway Nicola Benedetti on violin. I should mention to people, Nicola, that Leonard is your boyfriend. Yes, he is. The dynamic between players. You described that very poignantly and very movingly, that something happened.

Speaker 415:11

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti15:11

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Nicola Benedetti15:20

Yeah, it's it's strange with pieces of music like that, especially when they're

Nicola Benedetti15:26

clearly so great, but there's something very exposing because they're simple. And sometimes when you have a lot of notes going around and a lot of stuff happening,

Presenter15:33

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti15:38

Your window into the soul either of the interpreter, the player, or the composer isn't so clear. And with a piece of music like that, it's like through the music you understand something greater about the world, about your own feelings. It's just an unbelievable thing, and that's my whole wish with classical music, is when you get to feel that.

Nicola Benedetti16:01

You're so desperate for other people to feel it too. That's why I've I'm a crusader for classical music, because I just want other people to experience that.

Presenter16:09

And what about you and Leonard playing together then? You know, it's a it's an unusual dynamic, I imagine. There can't be that many people arguments.

Nicola Benedetti16:14

I imagine

Nicola Benedetti16:15

Yeah, you know argument.

Presenter16:17

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti16:17

That's what I'm getting at, you really guess. How does that go? Yeah, I know, that sometimes our pianist suffers because he's having to witness things that get, you know, rather personal, but it's wonderful because you can say what you mean and get to the point.

Presenter16:31

You've known each other for a long time. You were at the Yuhudi Menu in school together since you were ten. Yes. Did he always sort of have the eye for you?

Nicola Benedetti16:34

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti16:39

Um maybe.

Presenter16:42

And when you get home then, do you say to each other, you know, it's my turn now to have my three hours doing my practice? How do you divvy up the domestic duties versus all the professional commitments?

Nicola Benedetti16:53

Well we have an apartment with a room in the middle so we can both practice at the at the same time and often do. Sometimes it's nicer and easier to continue practising when you can hear someone else doing it alongside you'cause practice k is a very solitary thing and and and to stare at that score where it's just you and a sheet of music in front of you, it it can be quite tough going.

Presenter17:18

Let's get to the music, Niccola Benedetti, then. We're on your fourth choice.

Nicola Benedetti17:21

I've chosen a song sung by Aretha Franklin, son of a preacher man. She has a a natural way of singing and phrasing that classical musicians

Nicola Benedetti17:33

can only really dream of. I mean, what we do is is so controlled and so complex, sometimes we find it difficult to get back to that natural place. Listening to Aretha Franklin is like a lesson in how to feel something and express it directly.

Speaker 317:53

Billy Ray was a preacher's son, When his daddy would visit, he'd come along.

Speaker 318:00

When they gather round the pile talking

Speaker 318:03

That's when Devil will take me walking

Speaker 318:06

Through the manga we go walking

Speaker 318:09

They look into my eyes.

Speaker 318:12

Oh, no, it's my surprise. The only one who could ever reach me.

Speaker 318:18

Father thought I'm a great turn. The only boy who could ever teach me Father Son of a great term

Presenter18:27

That was Aretha Franklin and Son of a Preacher Man. You were singing along during that, Nick with Benedetti. You've got a lovely voice.

Nicola Benedetti18:30

And with that

Nicola Benedetti18:32

Oh no, it's terrible. I hate my mind. I wish I wasn't singing along.

Presenter18:33

Okay, so

Presenter18:34

Oh, we're gonna walk.

Presenter18:36

Yes, are you you're a very harsh critic of yourself, I get that impression.

Nicola Benedetti18:39

Um yes, I would say most of the time I'm I'm dissatisfied with how I sound as a violinist. And I think in order to really continue developing on a on a on a fundamental level I think it it it does have to be that way. I have so much in my in my mind of what I would like to sound like and what I want to be and I would say most of the time I fall short of that, but it is what has continued my improvement.

Presenter19:05

I noticed in interviews that I've read with you that you never really want to use the word prodigy. Why is that? Do you think it's jinxed?

Nicola Benedetti19:11

Why is that?

Nicola Benedetti19:12

No, I gen genuinely just don't associate it with me whatsoever. I do have uh a talent for the violin and a talent for music. I agree with that. I agree with that. But there are no shortcuts in order to be able to play well. I was actually working with a young student yesterday who came round to my to my home and

Presenter19:20

I agree with that.

Nicola Benedetti19:32

We spent close to three hours working on two elements. One was just intonation of a very short phrase and the other one was a vibrato exercise. And at the end of it, I mean I was so harsh on her, bless her, she was absolutely wonderful and took it all in her stride, but there are no exceptions to going through that work.

Presenter19:52

As you were growing up, did you notice the sacrifices? When you couldn't make a birthday party or you couldn't go and do the things that other teenage girls were doing, did that matter to you?

Nicola Benedetti20:00

I I definitely there was a few times, you know, tears not being able to go to a birthday party. But I also remember actually once when I was maybe about eight or nine years old being given the choice and being distraught by choosing

Nicola Benedetti20:16

to practise. But I did choose to practise, that's the point. And um even then, on a subliminal level, I was beginning to understand that there is more to young life than just having fun. Tell me about the first time.

Presenter20:29

And you met Yuhudi Menuen.

Nicola Benedetti20:31

I was ten years old the first time I met Yehudi Menuen, so my first year at Menuin school. Yehudi Manuen was one of these people that would walk into a room and even if you hadn't seen him walk in, you knew something changed. He had an aura as strong and as bright as the sun. And even at ten I could feel that and I remember it. The following year I had the privilege of playing Bach double concerto with a colleague friend of mine, Alina Ibragimova. We both played with Lord Yehudi Menuen conducting us and we had lessons with him and rehearsals with him so the exposure was unbelievable.

Presenter21:07

Time for some more of your music, Nicola. Tell me what we're going to hear now. We're on your fifth disc of the morning.

Nicola Benedetti21:12

This really is just a choice of a piece that I think is one of the greatest ever to be written. It's by Wagner. It's the prelude to his immense composition Tristan and Isolde. I've cried listening to this piece of music many times. It sort of keeps going and keeps hurting you, and it's sort of relentless.

Presenter22:39

That was the prelude to Wagner's Tristan and Isolda, played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir George Schulte. So, Niccola Benedetti, let's leap to you being sixteen and uh winning the B B C Young Musician of the Year a very big deal, and it catapulted you into the public glare. Can you describe what that amount of attention is like? How did it feel at the moment?

Nicola Benedetti22:54

Mm.

Nicola Benedetti22:58

Yeah.

Presenter22:59

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti22:59

I try often to remember how it felt. I had left Yuhudi Menu in school so I was just king of my own schedule and the Young Musician of the Year final happened and I think the next day my photo was on the front page of The Times and a practically full concert diary materialised within a very, very short space of time. So by the age of 17, 18 I was going through a very tough time for me. How many concerts would you be doing in a year?

Presenter23:24

How many

Presenter23:26

Uh

Nicola Benedetti23:27

I I don't remember exactly, but I think once I counted w one of those years was a hundred and ten or something, which which is, um, you know, considering it's lots of different repertoire and all all the travel it is, it was just it was actually far too much for that age and for the stage that I was at of my my violinistic development I actually wasn't ready for that.

Presenter23:46

I mean, it sounds beyond gruelling, really, a hundred and ten gigs in one year. How did you know it was too much at the time? What happened? High n

Nicola Benedetti23:53

I knew I wasn't fulfilling my potential at all. I knew I was going onstage underprepared, extremely nervous, worrying about all sorts of. I was trying to make sense of why am I here? Why do I have all this opportunity? Why do I do I deserve it? That's constantly how I was feeling during that sort of year or two.

Presenter24:14

What about those conductors and so on who were watching this young seventeen, eighteen year old girl come on to their stage, play with their orchestra, who must surely have recognised that she was a young girl under too much pressure and strain?

Nicola Benedetti24:16

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti24:19

Noodle

Nicola Benedetti24:25

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti24:27

Oh, many of them did. Absolutely. Did they talk to you about that at the time? I sometimes look back on it and I'm slightly disappointed with a couple of experiences where I felt someone could have been more advisory. I think I did feel that some of that support wasn't necessarily there within the profession. It's extremely cutthroat.

Presenter24:29

Absolutely.

Nicola Benedetti24:50

How did you get out of your commitments? Well, I I cancelled some things, not that much actually. I it was a very difficult um moment because I I I had released my second or maybe third um album. Um I had um uh a sort of a a machine counting on me to keep going in order for this whole thing to to to keep working. But I wouldn't actually change any of those experiences because what I learnt from going through that and from those performance experiences was just so immense.

Presenter25:23

Time for some more of your music, Nicola.

Nicola Benedetti25:24

We're we're going to your sixth.

Nicola Benedetti25:26

Yes, this is by Brahmaninov. The sonata for for cello and piano is is probably one of my favourite pieces of all time. This third movement is absolutely heartbreaking. It's a a theme and a tune to die for.

Presenter26:50

That was part of the Andante from Rachmaninoff's sonata for cello and piano. Once again the players were Leonard Elginbreuch on cello, Alex A. Grinuke on piano, and my castaway Nicola Benedetti on violin. And I could see the smile of enjoyment there as you were listening to your boyfriend Leonard play. What is it about his playing that you love so much?

Nicola Benedetti27:08

I I

Nicola Benedetti27:11

It's difficult to articulate so soulful.

Presenter27:15

I've seen Leonard play live. In fact, I've been lucky enough to stand just a few feet from him once as he was playing at the Royal Albert Hall. You're sort of the Bradn Angelina of the classical music world. Are people always asking you to sort of turn up at things together on each other's arm and sprinkle a little bit of stardust?

Nicola Benedetti27:27

Alvin

Nicola Benedetti27:29

No, but that's the thing is

Presenter27:31

They're not, I don't believe they're not.

Nicola Benedetti27:32

No, they're not.

Presenter27:34

They're missing a

Nicola Benedetti27:36

I mean, the whole world of doing anything other than turning up and playing is something that I purposefully tried to take a step away from. If there is a real subject at hand, if we're talking about music education, if we're talking about what in commercial sort of pop culture is bad for children, if we're talking about something, anything to do with classical music, then I'll be happy to be involved.

Presenter27:44

Way from

Nicola Benedetti28:01

In something that isn't playing, but but other than that, I just don't enjoy that whole thing. I I don't see the point of it, and neither does he.

Presenter28:08

In classical music right now, of course, image is also part of what is being sold. Have there been points in your career when you have uh been asked as a very attractive young woman to portray yourself in a way that you thought actually I'm I'm not entirely comfortable with that.

Nicola Benedetti28:18

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti28:22

Um

Nicola Benedetti28:24

Not I wouldn't say I've been overly troubled by anything like that. I mean, I've had th or there are definitely requests for for photo shoots that come in that th they don't even make their way to me any more'cause because they they know there's no discussion. There's not even a point in asking me'cause I won't be interested.

Presenter28:42

And your success. What do you enjoy spending your money on? Are you somebody who do you like sort of have you got a big flash car or do you go on fancy holidays? Not at all. I you're too Scottish and purity.

Nicola Benedetti28:48

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti28:54

I would say in actual fact I was wearing like the same two outfits for so many months. I just literally had not been been shopping at all and I went home to Scotland recently and my mum just took one look at me. She was like, this is not even a question. It's an instruction. You're coming with me to get a few nice outfits so that you look remotely presentable to people.

Presenter29:16

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti29:16

Let's have some more music then, Niccolo. Tell me what we're going to hear next. Next is quite a move away from classical. It's the last movement of a piece of music by a great friend of mine, mentor, and someone I admire hugely, Winton Marsalis. This is the the twelfth movement of his All Rise symphony. The whole progression of the piece is our journey through life from

Presenter29:36

The d

Speaker 429:36

Uh

Presenter29:36

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti29:40

when we're born to when we get to the stage eventually and this is the twelfth movement of accepting who we are and sort of the ultimate place to reach is to realize how much we all are together and how much we are one complex entity as a whole human race.

Presenter31:08

You enjoyed that. That was Wynton Marsalis and the twelfth movement of All Rise, entitled I Am, Don't Run From Me. It was sung by the Paul Smith singers, the North Ride singers of California State University, and the Morgan State University Choir. And we also heard them with the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was all conducted by Essa Pekka Salinen. That got you going, didn't it? I want to approach the word with caution. The word is discipline, and I'm wondering how your art has illuminated your approach to life generally.

Speaker 431:29

Media

Nicola Benedetti31:29

Yeah.

Nicola Benedetti31:34

I'm one

Nicola Benedetti31:39

I would say, harking back to El Sistema and all of the invaluable qualities of learning to play an instrument, which is aside from the creative and musical experience, the discipline involved in learning to play an instrument is really second to none and is something I absolutely have a breeze in trying to apply that to anything else because there are very few things that are going to be quite as challenging in terms of discipline.

Presenter32:11

What about the future, then, Nicola Benedetti? You know, you're such an articulate young woman, you're such an accomplished young woman, but you are only you are a young woman, you're twenty six. There's not probably a plan, but is there a notion of what else might interest you?

Nicola Benedetti32:25

I think there is a notion, but it doesn't nothing is divorced from what I'm doing now. The whole world of classical music, my lifetime is not even nearly enough to begin to listen to it all, understand it all, and get to sort of the bottom of all. I mean, even with one piece of music, I'm discovering something new each time I look at it. So playing and classical music in itself will be enough for my future. But I think I have a true hunger and desire and necessity to use whatever position I've been given to the absolute best of my ability to try to say something that is substantive and hopefully be out there leading s someone, even if it's only a few people, in a direction that is a positive one.

Presenter33:17

I can only imagine you would cope really well on a desert island. Let me see your beautiful precious hands. Oh, there you go. Do you think you could build a shelter with those? Could you catch a fish?

Nicola Benedetti33:25

I'm actually well, it's not so much my hands I would worry about, it's my arms. I'm so weak, honestly. Yeah, I get aches and pains in my arms all the time. Luckily, like none of n nothing really stops you playing properly on stage. It would have to be quite extreme because you basically don't feel pain when you're on stage, you're just so focussed. But um, yeah, I um really weak arms.

Presenter33:44

I'm going to be building a shelf.

Presenter33:46

Maybe you're not going to do as well as I thought. Maybe not. No, no, no. It's time for your final piece of comforting music then. Tell me about this. What are we going to hear?

Nicola Benedetti33:48

Maybe not.

Nicola Benedetti33:53

We're back to Beethoven. This is the the last couple of minutes of of Ode to Joy. I think this, along with Winter Marsalis's All Rise, just gives hope in the face of all kinds of adversity.

Presenter35:05

Part of the final movements of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony played there by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein, and we also heard the Juilliard chorus. It's time now for me to give you Nicola the books. You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get one other book to take along. You're smiling. What are you going to take?

Nicola Benedetti35:21

I am thinking that Nelson Mandela obviously has been in everybody's minds recently, and I read.

Nicola Benedetti35:30

Many times, a long walk to freedom when I was maybe about 15 or 16, and made all kinds of notes in that book, and I've lost it. So, I think not only for its unbelievable inspirational qualities that would, I'm sure, help me on my desert island, but also sort of to recapture the memories of reading it those years ago, I think that's what I would choose. It's yours then.

Presenter35:55

You're allowed a luxury too, now this is something not necessarily useful, but something that will make your life a little more bearable on the island.

Nicola Benedetti36:03

What?

Presenter36:03

What are you gonna take?

Nicola Benedetti36:04

Well, obviously my violin I mean I that's not even a that's a no-brainer as my dad would say. If I can have the violin in its case and could I squeeze in a few pieces of sheet music in the in the case they just happen to be in the case. They are all within there.

Presenter36:05

I mean I th

Presenter36:11

You can.

Presenter36:18

That is.

Presenter36:21

And if you had to save one of these tracks from the waves, which one would you run to save? I think it would be the the Beethoven Ninth Symphony. It's yours. Nicola Benedetti, thank you very much for listening to you.

Nicola Benedetti36:32

Thanks for letting us hear you guys. Thank you for having me.

Presenter36:53

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.