SOUNDTRACK: NICOLA BENEDETTI-Tiny Desk Concert #274 (May 6, 2013).
Nicola Benedetti is a Scottish violinist who has had a storied career already.
Benedetti was mentored by Yehudi Menuhin starting at age 10, and won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Award a decade ago. She plays a 1717 Gariel Strad. (It’s worth some $10 million.)
The first piece she plays was instantly recognizable–where had I heard it before? Ah yes, the mournful and harrowing music from Schindler’s List. [Williams: Theme from ‘Schindler’s List’]. She plays it perfectly, of course. It’s evocative and instantly brings back scenes from the film. And then apologizes for it being a bit of sombre start.
Then she plays a piece by Bach–he wrote six sonata and partitas trying to emulate many instruments at once. This one is Bach: “Chaconne from the Partita for Solo Violin in D Minor.” She says she’s not playing the whole thing because it’s 16 minutes long. But she plays the first third which is also recognizable. Once again, it sounds beautiful. The blurb speaks of “the way she makes room for silence in Bach’s Chaconne before tearing deep into its dense warp and weft.” And it is indeed enchanting.
[READ: May 30, 2016] The After-Room
This is the final book in a trilogy (what is it about trilogies that are so popular?) that began with The Apothecary.
This book is set in 1955. (Sarah and I were commenting on how this era of history is an unusual one for stories to be set and how that’s a nice change). Janie and Benjamin are safely back in Michigan after the deadly exploits of the previous book.
Benjamin’s father was killed at the end of the previous book and Janie’s parents have agreed to take care of him–so he is living with them. Janie’s father is quite suspicious of a romance between the two of them and he has every right to be. Janie is certainly in love and Benjamin probably is too, but he has other things on his mind right now.
I had planned to read this book when it came out, but I was involved with a very big book when it came out. But I was at the library with nothing to do so I grabbed this and started reading it and I was hooked immediately. In fact, I found this book so good, so fast paced and exciting that I put down my other reading and just flew through this. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 