Nicola Benedetti interview: Bruch, boyfriends and Scottish independence

On  18 September, the Scots will decide whether they want to become independent. But it is only a coincidence that Scotland’s most celebrated violinist is launching an album that brings together Scottish folk music, the tunes of Robert Burns and Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy. Nonetheless, I want to know where Nicola Benedetti stands on the most fundamental question the Scots have asked of themselves since the Act of Union in 1707.

I’m  sitting opposite her in the west London flat she shares with her German cellist boyfriend Leonard Elschenbroich. The late morning light from the window is catching her rich brown hair and turning it blonde. Is she, I ask, excited about the Referendum? ‘No. Terrified. I’m terrified either way. It’s a big moment and it’s a scary moment.’ There are, she feels, too many unknowns. ‘The more I think about it, the more my opinion is that people have to go on a fundamental principle, because the practicalities are impossible  to predict.’ For her, the fundamental principle is a ‘slightly romantic’ one. ‘Do you feel a part of Britain or do you want to be independent? Are you willing to say, “I want the idea of independence despite the fact that it may be worse for us in some way or another”? Or vice versa.’ She has found herself changing her mind and won’t tell me whether she’s reached a settled position.

Benedetti was born nearly 27 years ago to a half-Scottish, half-Italian mother and Italian father and brought up in West Kilbride. She followed her elder sister into playing the violin at just four and left Scotland to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School when she was ten. A decade ago she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year award for her performance of Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No.