VoxCarnyx

Decca Classics

Scottish violin star Nicola Benedetti’s new group is not without antecedents. Guitarist Martin Taylor’s Spirit of Django, with veteran accordionist Jack Emblow, and its inspiration, the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, with violinist Stephane Grappelli, were jazz groups but the ensemble sound was similar.

Here, however, there is usually just the one soloist, the violinist herself, and that seems like a missed opportunity, not least because the exceptions stand out in the set. Sarasate’s Navarra may be a well-aired party piece, but duetting with violinist Yume Fujise – who has also joined the quartet on tour for that one number – lifts the track from the other violin party pieces on the disc.

The live dates also seemed to feature cellist Maxim Calver rather more prominently than Thomas Carroll, who is on the recording, but it is really guitarist Plinio Fernandes and the accordion of Samuele Telari that it would have been good to hear more of, for their own virtuosity at least as much as for the variety.

The other exception is the trio of tracks in the middle of the album arranged by and in duet with Brighde Chaimbeul and her Scottish smallpipes. Only one of these, Skye Boat Song, is well-known, and that benefits hugely from her fresh approach. The swerve into traditional music is less awkward than could have been predicted, but the sharing of the limelight is one of the strengths of that sidestep that might have been emulated elsewhere.

Sit Peter Maxwell-Davies’s Farewell to Stromness – in an arrangement by Paul Campbell – is a step on that road earlier in the album, and it is lovely to have Benedetti playing that and tunes like Ponce’s Estrellita, but sometimes the arrangements commissioned for the album – and the four-square production – make you long for a little more risk.

There’s nothing wrong with Violin Café, and it will doubtless fill many Christmas stockings, but it’s more cappuccino than a shot of espresso.

Keith Bruce