Nicola Benedetti performs Meditation from Massenet’s Thaïs
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- Award-winning Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti stopped by The Greene Space in New York City to discuss a new artistic and educational collaboration with legendary American trumpeter, composer and educationalist Wynton Marsalis, Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. As an encore she performed Meditation from Massenet’s Thaïs, accompanied by pianist Alexei Grynyuk. Recorded on January 16, 2019.
Wonderful performance by Nicola, and tender, sensitive accompaniment by Alexei Grynyuk. What a stunning team they make!
This may be the most beautiful rendition of this piece that I have ever heard!
Isn't it so wonderful. I find the piece difficult to listen too because as a piece of music, it is beguilingly beautiful in everyway I can think of. Here Nicola plays it flawlessly and with such a natural sound flowing out especially the thick lower registers. Speechless as always with Nicola.
The only rendition of this piece I like better is Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg's; but, she has retired. This piece always brings me to tears. And, Ms. Benedetti is a pure genius. I love her playing.
My Dad was a violinist and taught me and my siblings from a young age and I am the only one who didn't pursue it coz I felt forced and didn't really like playing a violin. He used to play this piece whenever a loved one dies, locked up in his room, and I used to dislike this. He recently passed away at the age of 87 and I am playing my violin after 30 years, and this is now the only piece I want to perfect.😢 Very well played by Nicola, pretty similar to my Dad's rendition.💔 Breaks my heart with mountains of regrets. 😢😢💔💔💔💔💔💔 💔
Sometimes you don't REALIZE what they MEAN TO YOU until they're gone. In particular I'm remembering my Dad, who was very strict with me - and I was PERFECT - coz I didn't want any TROUBLE. Even tho I was always GOOD it really annoyed me, coz I was just being good to please HIM. Now, I have the rest of my 'LIFE" to think about him - my heart is healed now I think - but now we meet in my early morning DREAMS -we have REAL conversations!
I was surfing here there. Clicked on it. And she held me with her music and I sat and listend to the music with rapt attention like a 5 year old child..🤗☺
Absolutely beautiful. Nicola performs with such emotion and passion I'm literally welling up. Lovely gentle and sympathetic piano accompaniment too. Well done both.
Nicola Benedetti just blows me away! She is a gift!
Yes.
She's just amazing!!!
Beautiful piano accompaniment as well
Magnificent! How wonderful to be able to give so much pleasure to everyone.
She's playing the "Gariel" Stradivarius, made in 1717 and one of the most important (and valuable) instruments in existence. The owner loans it to her, having paid 6.3 million pounds for it. How awesome he enables such a superb artist let it sing like that.
Thanks for background information,wow what pressure she must be under to maintain and protect that thing.
Very tasteful, elegant and passionate. Superb color changes, pacing, dynamic range. A very thoughtful interpretation played with great sensitivity and conviction. Nicola Benedetti is one one of the world's finest violinists before us today. May she live long and prosper!
One of my favourite composers and sublime violinist: perfect accompaniment, bravo!
Of all the Classics this has always been my favorite, and beautifully played too..
Dang it. Doing it again.
Don't know what it is about the Meditation, it resonates with the deepest chords of loss, grief and longing
The right interpretation pulls up all those memories and my eyes well up uncontrollably.
She is an incredible violinist.
Many years ago I was wandering around the Tuilleries in Paris, no other soul in sight or earshot. Then a haunting violin from a hidden alcove lilts across the stillness, the opening notes transfixed me.
The power of its simplicity held sway then and it grips me equally to this day.
I think this piece is the most beautiful music I ever heard, also Air and some Beatles melodies like Here There And Everywhere.
Love this. Can't stop listening to it. It reaches into your soul but I am not sure whether it makes me happy or sad it's just beautiful.
I like to imagine the music describes perfectly what Thais was like. I didn’t know until recently she was real, her life was spent by the side of Alexander the Great and then Ptolemy. To have captivated the heart and mind of these two men later marrying Ptolemy after Alexander’s death and becoming queen of Egypt she must have been as beautiful and extraordinary as she has been described and I like to think this intermezzo captures her beauty and her spirit in every note.
Oh my God, what an incredible gift that experience was. That’s like a scene straight out of a really, really good movie. I am envious. I dream of such experiences. I have a handful of what I call “heaven fantasies”, which are experiences that I’d like to have once I pass on and am granted such a gift by a benign and loving Creator with the grace to grant such an earthly gift before transitioning into ethereal oneness with the universe. And you lived one of them. Wow. Wonderful.
You are not alone my friend.
Nicola Benedetti is amazing! She has the tone of her Maestro, Yehudi Menuhin. And that vibrato! Wow!
very well thought out interpretation and shining-of-clarity tones----impeccable technique...love it Nicola
Nicola! Your playing just gets me! Thank you!
This is the most wonderful rendition of all!!! Even as an amateur violinist one can learn so much from this astonishing young artist. I also appreciate her charming and most natural way of communicating in her "With Niki" workshops which are really helpful and motivating! Thank you so much!
Nicola Bendetti is an incredible violinist , who has the ability to play this with ultimate control which is very difficult (;I know ! ) she’s amazing x
@@juliejones717 I respond most to artists who play from the heart. This lady does just that!
What a lovely interpretation 👏🙏
clear pure tone and phrasing-one of the best interpretations of this song - exquisite
GOD! How much peace of mind it gives you! Exellent interpretation!
That was divine. It brought tears to my eyes.
That was so beautiful it hurt!
One of my favourite pieces of music
5 minutes and 30 seconds of sheer bliss.....
Beautiful piece. Beautiful tone. Beautiful lady. 🎻👏👏👏
The figure, rounding and vibrato are just so perfect here not to mention the violin playing by Nicola herself. Very, very nice indeed.
I couldn't imagine a more perfect interpretation. Beautiful! Brava!!!
Played to perfection like an old master of the violin.......😢
Just watching how Nicola's right arm moves is enough for me. What a natural performer, no sheet music 🤯
Tears
Such wonderful expressions used.... lovely vibrato... smooth flow of the bow too... i wish I could be personally tutored by Nicola the great 😊
Me too,
I play the violin but I’m nowhere as good as that
Yet.......................
Nicola simply doing what she does best 💗
That is so unbelievably good. I'm speechless.....
very , very , very good , thank you , thank you , thank you . life is wonderfull ...
Nicky has the perfect balance of technique and emotion.
BRILLIANT,NURTURUNG WARM, COMFORTING SENSUTIVE. GENIUS! BEAVO! I CANT PRAISE YOU ENOUGH NICOLA BENEDETTI! SCRUMPTIOUS!
Very buttery reassuring. OH if only I could play that well. I like the drowsy quality of this piece.❤
What a lovely piece. Massenet came into the limelight for this score just as Hoffmeister for his beautiful "Serenade" from his String Quartet Op. 3 No.5 :Andante Cantabile(the slow Movement) incorrectly ascribed to Haydn. Joseph Titus
For me Celtic spirit in meditation of Thais: Wonderful
Nicola you have me reason tO live inside 'trouble waters'.thanks.your sensibility tô play an instrument is like a Magic when we are inside problemsband deep distress.
This masterpiece she plays with incomparable skill and exquisite technique is the human fabulous lullaby and the cradle gently cradled by the mother
From
Tokyo of the Land of the Rising Sun 🇯🇵
Good sound, good playing!👍👍👍🙂🙂🙂
Wow, astounding.
Absolument extraordinaire interprétation, peut-être la meilleure de toutes.
Perfect sound!
Amazing how smooth she is. I almost drift off into atrance.
Outstanding and so enigmatic !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want a sweet sounding violin like hers!!!!!!!! Talk about talent and so nice to wake up to with my morning coffee. Life is good.
Annette Nelson - I think to pay for her violin you'd need a fair few million 😂
I guarantee you that Nicola would make your violin sound just as sweet.
musik102 - yeah that's true
I was very lucky to be be at the right place at the right time when this violin was being sold by the Spencer family. I got to play it for about an hour as the salesperson (who was incredibly kind) put me in a back practice room. I think they forgot about me, as I think I played on it for about an hour. I'm an advanced amateur and this violin could do no wrong no matter how hard I tried (!). One of the great highlights of my life that I will never forget. At the time it was selling for $1.3.
A beautiful woman playing beautiful music on a beautiful violin.
Wonderful, thank you
utterly sublime.
Absolutely awesome, perfection.
Quite a revelation this piece and Nicola Benedetti an exceptional artist
Thais was a famous hetaera in 5th Century Athens. Perhaps this piece and the feeling behind it reveals a way of life, an involuntary song.
FASTENATING IF TRUE, MAGICAL IF IT ISNT. FOOD FOR THOUGHT. WELL, SHE IS AGODDESS IN MY BOOK. I THINK SHE IS THE TOP FEMALE. VIOLINIST IN THE WORLD. CERTAINLY TESSA GIVES HER A RUN FOR THE MONEY, AND I LOVE TESSA AS WELL, BUT NICOLA NURTURES THAT STRAD SO DELICATLY ITS AS IF THE VIOLIN IS HER CHILD. SHE IS SO MUCH MORE SILKY THAN TESS. Im frankly torn. Between the two.😮 THE two of them have the violin world at their throats!, one day I like tessa better, the next day Nikki better. It's like a tennis match.
Just listened to this piece played as a cornet solo. It was lovely but it doesnt beat the violin playing it. Who else too but Nicola
Positively Heavenly Nicola! Stradivari must have made that violin for you. Bravo!😅
Das interpretações que mais amo
brava, bellissima interpretazione ❤!!
❤️❤️💕 Beautiful!
I am whatching vilon videos for homework.
Lovely...
Just gorgeous!
Realmente é algo maravilhoso,sublime ouvir está melodia.parabens Arabela
Amazing
Its beautiful 👍👍
Very beautiful ( although starting a little bit late )
Wonderful!
Bravo !
Exquisite!
Bravo
Somptueux. Délicat et très émotionnel.
❤❤❤
very beautiful
the challenge is the slur at 3:58, if speed up.
Brava!!
violino chega a sussurrar
BRAVA!!!!! 👍🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🏆
Magical
Spettacolo x l anima....
Her performance of this beautiful music is made even richer by her stunning appearance in yoga pants
I'm trying to learn this and it sounds like a hot mess rn 💀
One must not wear boots playing violin.
Who cares what she wears when she can make music like this.
Really? How about if she wears a bikini ?