Nicky and Wynton: The Making of a Concerto

Nicola Benedetti is one of the most sought-after classical violinists

of her generation.

She regularly performs with the greatest orchestras in the world.

Wynton Marsalis is one of the biggest stars in jazz,

A trumpet virtuoso and composer with nine Grammy Awards

and a Pulitzer Prize to his name.

They're working together on a concerto

which Wynton will write for Nicky,

and which she will premiere with the London Symphony Orchestra.

It's going to be embarrassing.

These two very different artists share a common goal.

They both believe that great music can transcend rigid categories

like jazz or classical.

But the next nine months will put that belief to the test.

Yes, this whole thing so far has been much more time-consuming

-than I expected.

-It's already late.

So, I mean, it's not going to be on time.

Wynton has been a mentor to Nicky

since she found stardom in her late teens.

The winner of the 2004 Young Musician Of The Year is

-Nicola Benedetti!

-APPLAUSE

But they have never collaborated like this before.

I can't do this, I'm sorry.

With intimate access behind the scenes,

we follow these two intensely driven individuals as they try to create

a concerto that can unite the different musical traditions

that have defined them.

I love jazz music and I love the orchestra.

Now, I think the two can come together.

I may not be able to do it,

but somebody can do it.

It's January 2015,

and Nicola Benedetti has arrived in New York to work with

Wynton Marsalis on his violin concerto for the first time.

Two days ago,

I received, like, the first printed...

copy of some music from Wynton.

Before that, the only thing I had was, like, things like this...

and which are impossible to read.

And, actually, this is very neat.

This is much more neat than the first couple of photographs

that I was sent, but...

um...it is still, like...

You know, it's not the most practical thing to read off.

SHE PLAYS

One of the cornerstones of the classical repertoire,

the concerto is a piece written for a soloist and an orchestra.

Many of the greatest violinists in history have inspired concertos,

like those by Mendelssohn, Brahms and Sibelius.

Every single violin concerto out there, almost all of them,

was written with a violinist saying to the composer, "That's too hard,

"that's too easy, you should add this, you should take away that."

He keeps saying he wants it to be something that I am really

enthusiastic about playing. So he wants to write it for me,

something that I love to play,

rather than just, like, here is his masterpiece composition,

you'd better like it, kind of thing.

So he's really been sort of sending me a lot of things,

like thematic material,

and then also the sort of more technically demanding things,

just asking, "Does this work? Do you like this?

"Is this the kind of thing that suits you?"

So I've been receiving, like, little bits of information,

drips and drabs like that, but nothing that, you know,

has been a kind of whole structure.

But if every concerto is a dialogue between soloist and orchestra,

Wynton and Nicky want this one to be a dialogue

between two very different types of music as well.

But whatever ambitions they have for the piece,

they have to start somewhere.

I think it's best if we just go through the different moods first.

But doesn't mean I can play it, though. I can't... I mean, I can't play it.

I practised it this morning.

I'm sorry, there's no "it". There's just... There's just notes.

I just want to make sure that have caught the mood that you want in the different sections.

So with this line, it has everything that you wanted in it?

-So first it's like...

-HE PLAYS A FEW NOTES

Like, you just...

And it's, like... It builds up.

This is where you get to the kind of psychological part

that we're going to develop later.

Then you come away from it.

Now you get to the soulful part.

So just those first bars, you have the encapsulations of the different

moods that we're going to do.

NICKY PLAYS

It's really amazing to meet a person this much younger than me

and who's that engaged with their culture, and that serious.

Listen, it's very rare.

For me, writing a piece is very personal.

I almost get obsessed with my work, day and night,

and have certain type of pressures.

I only want to write it for her to like it.

So we're just holding the chord.

For Wynton, this piece would be an expression

of some of his most deeply held beliefs about music.

In his mind, music is always part of a shared human inheritance.

The greatest body of literature in the West is music.

All respect to Shakespeare and Dante and all the greats.

That body of music is... Whew! That's a powerful library.

'I don't separate music so much into styles.

'Classical music is such a great library that I always liked.

'And I never liked it against jazz.

'I'm a jazz musician - my father was a jazz musician, I always loved jazz.

'And not just one person is creative, or one group of people,

'we're all creative. We can achieve great things if we're willing to

'struggle with each other

'and go through the dialogue and arguments and things and come back together.'

'So we're just starting. I'm finished sketching the first movement, her part,

'which is going to change. I sent her one sketch, she said it's too simple.

'So I said, "OK." Normally, I get people complain it's too hard.'

How did she say it...?

She said, "None of this is anything that I could not play after looking at it for 20 minutes."

So, OK, you know, we'll see.

Like many modern concertos, Wynton's will have four movements.

As spring arrives, Nicky receives the second movement.

She no longer has a problem with the music being too easy.

NICKY PLAYS

SHE GRUNTS IN FRUSTRATION

Oh, my goodness, have I got what I asked for,

which was music that's hard to play!

I'm just, like, looking at these notes, going,

"Why would I have insisted on that?

"Why would I want to make my life so difficult?"

I must have practised this page for, like,

I don't know, five hours in a row?

And I still sounded terrible playing it.

Part of the point of any concerto is to be a showcase for the talents of the soloist.

The second movement is full of incredibly fast

and virtuosic playing.

But the notes themselves aren't the only reason it's going to

be hard for Nicky to play.

It's particularly difficult

with music that you have never heard before,

that you've never seen before

and that there are no reference points for.

You're starting from a completely different position

to what you would if you were to open a Shostakovich violin concerto,

and you have so much context.

You know the sound of Shostakovich, you know his language,

and you've sort of grown up with the...

with the idea and the sense of how that sounds and how it's meant to sound.

This is... This is so...

alien in so many ways.

It's going to rely on me so deeply understanding and feeling each sound

and colour and expression.

Unless you internalise them and you really live with it for a while

and try to...

try to...

let it become a part of your fibre,

it sounds very much like an imitation.

We are definitely over the honeymoon phase.

Definitely.

And, like, all the little...

..potential issues and cracks and challenges are...

..not on their way to surfacing, they are here.

They're definitely here.

THEY PLAY JAZZ

Part of what will make Wynton's music so challenging for both Nicky

and the orchestra to play is that it revolves around a type of sound

and feeling that rarely features in the classical canon.

I love jazz music.

It has a certain type of humour and optimism,

it has Anglo-Celtic music as the foundation of the harmonies

and the melodies.

There's African rhythm.

Afro-American rhythm and feeling.

And it's rooted in the blues.

If you play 99% of your time in something

that's not blues idiom music,

it takes a great investment to make a blues idiom statement.

It's hard.

Nicky's great investment in taking on this piece is about more

than learning and understanding the blues.

Her part will encompass African rhythms, burlesque passages,

gospel inflections and traces of Celtic folk.

Classical violinists don't often play any of these things,

let alone all of them, in one concerto.

OK, that's short.

De-de de-de-AH-da.

It's a combination of a jig and an African 6/8.

'I always loved the fiddle,

'trying to figure how to make the instrument do the things

'that I can bring to it that are different.

'I have to filter through my own sensibility of jazz,

'and make the orchestra groove, make it play the feeling of the blues,

'to change the emotions and colours the way we do it in jazz,

'because we are improvising.'

De-de... Just like you're playing a jig.

HE CONTINUES DEMONSTRATING RHYTHM

So it's one, two, three, four.

So we're going from one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three.

HE DEMONSTRATES

'For some reason, there's a desire to dismiss things that are dance-like,

'or tuneful, or grooving.

'And many times it's dismissed by those who can't groove,

'those who don't understand the power of a groove.

'The presence of a groove doesn't mean a lack of emotional depth

'or psychological complexity.'

HE DEMONSTRATES

-Yeah, but am I...?

-You can do it. It's a drum, too.

It's a very percussive instrument.

I mean, you've written, "Sing out." Is it...? Is it like...?

-It's loud.

-OK.

It's like when the piano plays...

HE PLAYS EMPHATICALLY

But then it became... It became like what singers

in the '50s would play... in the churches, like...

MORE EMPHATIC

# And the Lord knows

# That you will find...# You know what I mean? It's just...

# DE-de-de-de-de-de DE-de-de-de-de-de. #

OK, that's the first time I just about played it!

I'm trying to finish her part.

And I'm... Of course I'm late.

Every time she plays it, I hope it changes.

There's going to be an end to that.

Especially... Especially with anything...

Especially with anything fast.

Like, the plan is, when I go home after this trip,

is that all the fast stuff basically stays as it is, because I just...

-I'm not going to be... I'm actually not going to be able to learn it in time otherwise.

-Just make up stuff.

I can't do that. I'm incapable.

It's just fast, you can do it.

-I can't.

-When you start playing, you'll see it.

I will stop. I'll just stop, in the concert.

Don't. Just start playing 16th notes.

Don't.

Six months into their collaboration,

it is clear to Nicky that flexibility and openness

to change are fundamental to Wynton's approach to composition.

But this doesn't always sit well

with her rigorous classical training.

I sent some little clips to Wynton of the things that I was working on.

And if he hears something that is not sitting right

or that doesn't sound that good,

his instinct is just to want to change the notes,

all the time. Just change it.

The whole point of the last trip that I took to New York was, like,

to have the notes finalised and they're not going to change now.

Nicky's difficulty with changing notes is partly a practical one.

It's only when she's been able to solve the complex puzzle of where

to place her fingers and her bow

that she can start the real work of finding and creating her own voice

within the piece.

No matter how much I try to explain to him how long the process takes to

really solidify the music into your fingers and into your muscle memory,

the worst thing that he can do is just change the notes all the time.

Which is what he keeps doing.

In terms of the hours put in

to actually developing your interpretation of something,

there's definitely something about how you're tying yourself to

those notes and how you're working out what you're going to say through them.

And that's something that happens if you spend 50 hours doing that

that couldn't possibly happen if you just pick it up and play it.

But for Nicky, the hours she needs to spend on the new piece

will have to be found whilst constantly playing concerts

and doing music education work all over the world.

Wynton must finalise Nicky's part and write the entire

orchestra score while playing a similar number of gigs

and simultaneously being responsible for a major cultural institution -

Jazz at Lincoln Center.

I'm playing a Brahms violin concerto,

a Korngold and Glazunov violin concerto.

Quite a lot of chamber music repertoires - Schubert,

a lot of Vivaldi pieces.

Obviously this monster of a piece.

I wonder how many concertos have been composed on the road like this.

I don't know too much is done like this.

It's unorthodox.

If you want unusual results, you have to do something unusual.

Yes, this whole thing so far has been much more time-consuming than I expected.

Often if feels like you're just being sort of pulled and pushed

in so many different directions.

I know Nicky's part is going to be great.

She thinks I'm not respectful enough of all the work that she has to do, but she's going to do that.

I'll be particularly happy when my part is not only written but it's going to stay as it is.

-'Right.'

-You know, I have eight versions of the second movement

and each time I print a new version,

I have to put in every single bowing and fingering again.

'That's why you should have played trumpet.'

SHE LAUGHS

I've barely spoken to Wynton the last couple of weeks.

And he just sounds like someone who hasn't slept at all.

I mean, I barely recognised his voice.

If I don't have this music finished...

I don't know what's going to happen with the wave I'm on.

So I'd better make sure I ride this wave out.

After months of communicating by e-mail and phone,

Nicky and Wynton are finally able to get together in London.

All four movements of Nicky's part are now written, but she still needs

Wynton's help to explain the emotions and meaning behind it.

All the thematic material and everything is in this.

Doesn't necessarily help me play the rest of the notes.

But it helps me understand the meaning behind them.

OK. Um...

It's like you remembering something that's unbelievably...

It's not even sweet, it's far beyond that.

The first movement is night-time.

This is right before you go to sleep.

You're going to have a dream.

You sing somebody a lullaby or a bedtime story.

Then it goes to the groove.

This has a real build-up,

it's like you're going to a destination that's kind of high-minded.

You're looking up here. You came from the blues, now you're going up here.

And when you get to this point now, it goes back to that pastoral feel.

HE HUMS MELODY

-Then you say...

-HE HUMS

Now, when you get to that, that's when you're almost asleep.

I mean, like, your thoughts that you have right before you go to sleep.

-HE HUMS

-Like... Like angels, they're just flitting around.

So you see that... For this beginning section to be successful,

all of that has to be in it.

At this point, that much information is just great.

It changes everything about how I feel, about how I play,

about how I feel in relation to the other parts, the tempos, the sound, everything.

It only builds depth into the piece.

VIOLIN MUSIC FADES INTO JAZZ DRUMMING

His unrelenting tour schedule brings Wynton and his team to France,

to play the Jazz In Marciac Festival.

The first important deadline for the concerto is fast approaching.

RAGTIME JAZZ

A full draft of the score is nearly complete.

The race is on to put in all the finishing touches,

as in two weeks' time, an orchestra has been lined up to rehearse it

for them, in Chautauqua, in upstate New York.

This will be the first and only time they get to hear the concerto before

its premiere in London.

-Are you going to be on time for Chautauqua?

-Define "on time".

It's already late. So, I mean, it's not going to be on time.

Every day, there is always 25 things.

Are you going to have time for a rest after all this?

There's no rest. This is the rest.

This actually is the rest.

I get to play with Walter and Vic and everybody, that's the rest.

MODERN JAZZ

For Wynton, scoring for an entire orchestra

allows him to express himself on a scale

that exists nowhere else in music.

But it's not without its challenges.

If you come on the road with a band...

We've been blowin' with each other for 20 years, 15 years.

It's no problem communicating with each other.

We talk all the time. "Play this music like this."

And it's not said in arrogance, it's just we have a method, a way of working on stuff.

It is democratic, we understand what our objective...

or our perspective, and we are willing to...

But then again, that's 15 people.

Could I conceive of 70 people doing it?

They COULD do it, it's hard to conceive of it.

BLUESY JAZZ

Unlike some composers,

Wynton writes every note by hand for every single part of the orchestra.

The only person helping him with this is his copyist, Jonathan Kelly,

who must transcribe his handwriting into readable scores.

The whole idea of composing music for a symphony,

you're taking a thought

and then making a visual representation of thought.

So you're going from thought to visual representation,

to another person looking at it and interpreting your visual

representation of your thought.

And then hoping that all 100 of them...um...

kind of...kind of...hear

or see the thought in similar fashion.

It's almost impossible, if you really think about it.

Back in London, with the first rehearsal looming,

Nicky must deepen her own understanding

of what all the other arrangements will be playing.

Yesterday, I received this from Jonathan, who's in France.

These are the new parts.

So this is the chance I have to actually see what the flutes are playing,

piccolo, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba,

timpani, three percussionists, harp, violin one, violin two, viola,

cello and bass.

My biggest fear would be that...

..something changes at the last minute, I don't have enough time to adjust,

and I somehow come unstuck with the orchestra and conductor.

It's perfectly possible.

It can happen in pieces that we all know really well and we've played

a million times. It can happen.

But with a piece that's brand-new

and so many changes happening all the time,

I think the chances of that happening are significantly higher.

All the work so far has been leading up to this moment.

Nicky and Wynton are heading to Chautauqua,

where they're going to hear the concerto for the first time.

The car ride up is the last chance for Nicky to try to understand the orchestra's part.

Who's playing that? Tuba?

Tuba. But one bass playing a heavy pizzicato.

And is this... # Um-ba um-ba... #

No, it's just a straight eight. # Ba um-ba um-ba...#

Tuba.

Tu...ba.

In Chautauqua, there will be two rehearsals and a performance

of the current draft of Wynton's unfinished concerto.

-INTERVIEWER:

-When this piece gets in front of an audience,

what's at stake for you guys then?

I want people to like it.

You know, I stayed up all...

For the last two months, I've been up at four, five o'clock in the morning,

after going to bed at two,

then working all day doing gigs and being on the road and being...

spoken to indelicately.

THEY LAUGH

That's...

That was the worst... I mean, that's it.

We've put the time and the work into it.

She was practising all... She practised 14 hours yesterday.

I really care.

I'm not going to lie about that at all.

Some people just...

will not be honest about that or they really don't.

I really care.

Chautauqua is a long way from the Barbican or Carnegie Hall,

but every summer, this small lakeside holiday community

plays host to a distinguished orchestra. For Nicky and Wynton,

their offer to workshop the concerto

was worth going out of their way for.

ORCHESTRA TUNES UP

When dealing with an orchestra of any kind,

rehearsal time is at a premium.

Regardless of how difficult they find the piece,

there will only be two three-hour sessions to work on it.

-All right, I'll keep at it, then.

-Yes, sure.

-The percussion...

And Jonathan is still making Wynton's changes

right up to the wire.

We delivered the music to the musicians just a few days ago.

Now, an hour before rehearsal,

I have to go to them and say, "OK, well, we're actually going to change this one section."

Instead of printing out a brand-new set of parts,

you paste in a few measures and put it into the original part.

ORCHESTRA TUNES UP

The guest conductor is Cristi Macelaru.

Let's hear this. There's nothing like hearing music for the first time.

So we'll start at the beginning and make our way through there.

I know there are many questions, but...

but Mr Marsalis is right here and he will answer everything.

'It's hard being a composer. It's a very difficult thing.'

You create something that is only alive when someone else

believes in it, when someone else does it.

VIOLIN PLAYS

Most composers, in my experience,

when they hear something they wrote for the first time, they're shocked.

You know? And sometimes at the very beginning, the first reaction is,

"Oh, my God, this is completely not what I expected,"

and they don't like it, you know,

because they've lived with the music inside their head and it's become

such a personal thing that it's hard to let it go.

Wynton is indeed shocked by what he hears in the first few minutes.

OK. I know I'm a little slow. I know... I'm... Sorry, Wynton.

OK. Shall we try this? This is 199. Thank you so much for your patience.

-There's a lot she did that...

-OK.

-There's a lot I need to...

The first half seemed too dry, the second half seemed too much.

The first rehearsal is never perfect,

but for Jonathan and Wynton, there were far more issues

with the piece than they had expected.

This here is terrible. It's just a groove, though.

You know what I want to do? Give this part to one bassist.

I have to make sure that this is right, what I'm saying.

I'm trying to figure out why this harmony doesn't sound right.

I think I heard a lot that I would like to change.

We make the changes we can make. Some of them we can't make.

But it's not going to change a lot,

but there's just some things I want to change.

That first play-through was a shock to you at first?

That first 15 minutes was irresolute for me.

It was, whoo...

I start looking at it, like, "What?"

I can't tell what...

..whether what I wrote is inept or, you know,

just for everybody to get used to the language.

And this... You have to be patient.

-What are your expectations for tomorrow?

-I expect it'll improve.

I hope it does.

You know, that's basically what it is.

ORCHESTRA TUNES UP

None of the musicians know the music, nobody was playing the right dynamics.

We've loads of wrong notes.

Some in the part, some just people playing the wrong notes.

You have, like, even just 15 mistakes like that

within the first five minutes of a piece and it sounds like a completely different piece.

ORCHESTRA PLAYS

With no further rehearsals planned until the piece arrives at the LSO,

Wynton has only three remaining hours with an orchestra in front of him

to establish what is and isn't working.

It needs to be slower. The whole thing should be grooving, more than being virtuosity -

it's more groove. You want to tell him about the violin?

-Yeah.

-Can the first play 8va

on the pick-up to 74 for that four-bar phrase?

Five or whatever it is?

ORCHESTRA PLAYS

Maestro, can we take the timpani out from measure 157 to 165?

-Maestro?

-Yes, sir.

-Would you do the same thing at measure 25?

That's the one point that has to be really clear, what she's playing.

-Maestro?

-Yes, please?

Can we take the cymbal part out from measure 133 to 138?

Just leave the tambourine.

And also the horns from the same, please.

Is this getting closer to what you had in mind?

Just the feeling is not right.

We know the melody and the bass are confused.

-Give us one more chance.

-It's not...

It's something that's globally wrong.

So there's probably six or seven places in the piece

that have kind of monumental changes that you don't have time

to fix, communicate, practise,

so...that'll just have to happen after.

-INTERVIEWER:

-And by definition they'll be unpractised when this gets to the LSO?

Yeah.

Yeah, the LSO will be looking at a brand-new set of parts.

It's obvious the concerto is far from ready.

Whether they know it's a test run or not,

the idea of playing it to any audience right now is more than

a little unsettling for Nicky.

Usually after rehearsal, I would have a really proper debrief

just with myself, and I haven't had the space to do that,

on all the things that, like, I did wrong...

of which there were many.

So I'm just going...

I've got, like, half an hour.

The question is... I can't believe I'm going to play this.

-Yeah, you're going to play.

-That's going to be embarrassing.

-This...

-It won't be.

-OK, I'm just going to...

I'm not going to play that tonight.

I'm just going to play there.

You can play that, too.

Ohhh...

OK.

-If for some reason I don't get... What should I do?

-It doesn't matter.

If I just end up there and play that, that's OK?

-Just feel it. Yeah.

-You'd rather I...?

Concentrate on playing, don't concentrate on that.

Don't worry about that, OK? That's not in a place.

Don't start thinking about going from there to there.

-It's going to be...

-It's not.

The amount of just...

..notes that are not just wrong, they're going to be in-between...

No-one will know that they're wrong.

-No, I know, OK.

-I wrote them, and

-I

-won't know.

-OK.

-Don't worry about it.

-OK.

ORCHESTRA TUNES UP

Yes.

-Ready?

-I suddenly feel slightly sick.

CONDUCTOR LAUGHS

Maybe not only slightly, maybe quite sick.

OK, look, whatever happens, you know...

I'll start whistling your part if there's a problem.

-Don't worry about it.

-You are...

APPLAUSE

CONCERTO CONTINUES

After repeatedly listening to the recording of the Chautauqua performance,

Nicky's mind is now focused on the audibility of her part.

So we're just... We're just going through the part,

analysing all the things we didn't think worked,

-especially the balance issues. Um...

-INTERVIEWER:

-What's the balance issue? Explain that.

Balance issues, basically, when Wynton's over-scored the orchestra,

used too much brass and percussion.

When they play, they cover me, so just trying to reduce them

so that you can definitely hear me.

In many cases, a violin concerto might have a 30- to 40-piece orchestra

playing behind the soloist.

Wynton's concerto calls for around 80 players.

Nicky's virtuosity will mean nothing if the orchestra drowns her out.

I'm sure you couldn't hear that in the hall.

-You can hear it.

-Do you remember that specifically?

Everything you couldn't hear I've marked in the score

and said you cannot hear it.

-What about that?

-What was the problem with that?

If you had to analyse it.

-First, the...

-Well, the first problem is that you can't hear me,

that's the first problem.

INDISTINCT

That's always the first problem.

-But the question is why?

-I'm what?

I'm saying why is it that you think you can't hear the part?

If you look at the part and analyse it.

If we just listen to it.

What would be your analysation of the problem?

Because I'm playing with a lot of people that are playing forte.

Who's playing...? Who of the people that are playing are playing forte

would be in your way?

The bassoons? The oboe's an octave below you or something?

-Look at who's playing.

-I'm looking.

In their middle reg... They're not in strong registers for that.

So what do you suggest?

Everything I'm saying is based on the fact that you've marked that

you couldn't hear me, it's not just my, like...

When we listen to the tape, why do you think you couldn't be heard?

Just listen to the tape and think about it.

Even the percussion, like, always seems like it

does take up quite a lot of noise.

Maybe it could just start less.

-PENCIL SCRIBBLES

-You can hear that.

That's not going to be a problem.

I can't do this. I'm sorry.

CHAIR SCRAPES

It'll be heard now.

-THUMP

-Taking out the whole thing?

You can be heard when nothing is there.

What's there is still...

-is going to go bom-bom-bom...

-HE CONTINUES

And you hear the violin.

She thinks that I'm mad taking it out, but I'm not.

I don't mind taking it out.

We'll work it out.

That's what collaboration is.

You have to work it out.

It'll work out.

It is so difficult to have those conversations

where you're trying to say to somebody you think it's great,

but maybe it's just not this or not that, and...

Oh, I hate it.

I have so much work to do between now and the actual concert.

After two more months of changes and rewrites,

Wynton's concerto has been delivered to the London Symphony Orchestra.

The time has come for Nicky to rehearse and play the premiere.

NICKY PLAYS VIOLIN

This time, the guest conductor is James Gaffigan.

Yeah.

Do you think we will, in the time that we have,

-at least get to play through the last movement today?

-We'll feel it.

I think the bulk of the time should be spent on the first

and then showing them the ending of the piece.

You know, they should see what's happening there.

-Yeah.

-So...

-It'll be fun. Great. I'm going to go up there and just see how they're setting it up.

-OK.

I have two parts of my personality.

I have the very black and white, logistical part of my personality,

of what's going to work, what's not going to work.

And when I look at a score like that, I see problems right away.

But I think in the case of doing a world premiere,

there's going to be a lot of shocking things one will hear.

Wrong notes, wrong rhythms.

Some are the musician's fault, some are the composer's fault,

some are the copyist's fault.

Some are the soloist's fault, some are the conductor's fault.

We are all guilty at one point or another.

And it just takes time.

It never happens right away.

-INTERVIEWER:

-Are you ready for this?

-I'm really nervous.

I'm, like, slightly panicking.

I'm not panicking, just...really nervous.

I react quite strongly to the rehearsal process with the orchestra

and it's something I do build up to and I expect something from myself

and from the collaboration.

And there's something about it that is, like...

You know, you're just diving into it -

I mean, literally like diving into the unknown.

CONCERTO PLAYS

This tempo, I was just...

-Fine.

-They were just... You know, so many things going slightly wrong.

-This tempo, I think, could be much slower.

-7/8 slower.

-Much more like...

-Ah!

-This is more like...

-The softer all of this is,

-and very clear and comical, this place.

-Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, let's make sure. OK.

'I'm really not feeling so positive just now

'because I just feel like it was sort of a bit messy.'

Everything was loud. A lot of the time, I couldn't hear myself.

I couldn't hear any clarity in my part.

I couldn't hear clarity in the orchestra,

but they're also just a loud orchestra

and they're an orchestra that can create this unbelievable

overview and expansiveness.

But for this, so much of the time,

we just need, like, really cold clarity.

It's such a...completely new landscape to these musicians.

And to Nicky and I, actually.

Although things make sense in the score, it's like...

When it's happening in front of you, you realise, whoa,

this is going to be difficult.

I couldn't really get a feel for

how much everybody was feeling the piece or not.

Just feels like a blur,

just like a blur of just, like, wading our way through

and it feels like quite a panicked sort of environment as well.

It doesn't feel...very calm

and it doesn't feel like it has much clarity,

so I just don't feel great.

And, of course, I immediately blame everything on myself.

Like, my sound is small, my sound is not carrying enough,

it's not leading enough, blah blah blah.

But I've spoken to, like, the people who are with me that are here

and they're saying it's not the case, it's just that...

There's just too much chaos going on and they just have to be brought

right down and everything has to be cleaned up and clarified.

'It's hard to write for a violinist and 100 people.

'It's a bit strange, when you think about it,

'but this has become the norm to have 80 to 100 people on stage

'and one violinist as a soloist.

'What's the use of doing all this work, of doing all this gymnastics,

'when no-one's going to hear you?'

But it doesn't mean the soloist should play louder.

It means the orchestra needs to play in a more transparent way.

Personally, I feel like things like the second movement,

the first run of the second movement

in Chautauqua was clearer than it was today.

That's how I feel.

Anyway, it's fine. Everything is fine.

SHE EXHALES

I just don't do well when I think I'm playing badly.

I'm just always very...

Um... I feel very, you know, low, when I think that.

OK!

The day of the performance has finally arrived.

The rehearsal process has left Nicky wondering if she's prepared or not.

-'Hello?'

-Hi, it's Nicola Benedetti.

-BEEP

-'The LSO?'

-Yes.

DOOR CLICKS

'I'm not going to be able to be at the premiere.'

That's right in our fall season.

And it kills me that I can't be there.

I want to be there, even if it's just for moral support.

It's nothing... I mean, I'm not playing.

And Nicky is going to play great.

She knows the piece. She is serious about it.

I'm not worried at all.

Wynton, he's going to be a nervous wreck,

and all he's relying on is me...

sending him messages about, "Yeah, it sounds good," or...

Actually, the interesting thing about Wynton is that if I write to him and I say,

"Hey, here's an issue at bar 73,

"I think that the French horns are too loud,

"maybe we can pull them back," there's no problem, he'll respond.

Any time you tell him that everything sounds good,

he thinks I'm lying to him

because I'm just trying to protect myself from doing more work!

Which isn't true.

In the Barbican Hall,

an audience of London's classical music elite starts to assemble.

I think if I would be there, I would really be nervous for her.

A soloist is by themselves.

A band, you are a family.

It's a big difference.

The life she is living, that's a hard life.

There's a lot of pressure playing these very difficult pieces.

You've got to be on a certain level of perfection.

You're sitting in front of all those people, playing your instrument. It's always the dynamic.

She has a lot of pressure on her.

There's something about the life of walking on stage, playing this thing

from memory, everybody so silent.

It's like there can be something...

There can be a lot of tension in the profession of doing that.

There's no real predicting

what you're going to feel and what's suddenly going to, like, surface.

It'll take you by surprise,

but that's part of the risk that you take.

I hope that they have the opportunity to love her artistry

and her musicianship. I want people to enjoy things.

And I offer things to people when I'm doing it,

because if I'm not going to offer it to you, I don't need you...

I can keep it. Like, I don't...

You know, I'm offering it.

And I'll take the risk that you'll hurt my feelings.

This is the life... the life we live.

We try new things, we try to do things.

-Let's do it.

-Right.

INDISTINCT

HE CLAPS

APPLAUSE

I could never imagine writing a piece of music like this

and letting it go.

It must be a strange feeling, you know.

You have a child and the child is yours.

It's clearly yours, it has...

everything from you, you know, the DNA, all these beautiful things.

But then one day, that child's going to go out in the world.

And that child's going to change and that child is going to grow.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

The crowd give the premiere a standing ovation.

-It was great. How do you feel?

-INDISTINCT REPLY

And even the famously hard to please LSO is impressed.

I think this is a very exciting new piece and I think

it's a great addition to the violin concerto repertoire.

And I'm sure it will last the test of time.

But for both Nicky and Wynton,

the story of the concerto is only just beginning.

I have this piece and it has been written

and it's going to change with me

and it's going to change in ways that I don't even know yet,

and that's one of the most fulfilling and beautiful journeys

that you have with a piece of music.

I did not play remotely perfectly, but I was, I think,

very relaxed and just gave it everything, and people just...

The piece was...

was...great.

I don't know what else to say. And people loved it.