'You're going to think I'm so sad," says Nicola Benedetti during our interview. Sad wasn't exactly the word I had in mind to describe the Scottish-Italian teenage violin sensation. Determined? Maybe. Stunningly talented? Certainly.
Drop dead gorgeous? Grr. You could dislike this girl, if she wasn't bubbling over with - well, with whatever constitutes the Scottish-Italian equivalent of joie de vivre. Haven't I just read an article which describes her as one of Scotland's most eligible women, for goodness sake: an understatement, surely, given that she comes complete with a record deal worth a cool million and a full set of rave reviews? Haven't I just watched a film made by the BBC in which her blend of vivacity and doe-eyed anxiety make her look like a cross between Cecilia Bartoli and Zoe out of EastEnders?
Benedetti grew up in West Kilbride, Ayrshire, which accounts for the dark-chocolate quality of her vowels and consonants.
"I have one sister," she says in response to a request for information about her family background. "My mum and dad were both born in Italy, and my mum came to Scotland with her parents when she was three years old. My dad was sent to Scotland by his parents when he was 10. There's quite a large Italian community in the west of Scotland, so they settled quite quickly."
And that's all she's willing to say - though there are hints, in the television film, that famiglia Benedetti, to put it mildly, isn't short of a bob or two.
Copying her sister, young Nicola first picked up a violin at the age of four - and, by all accounts, burst into tears. Why?
"I don't know," she says. "I think I was quite a shy little girl, so when I had that first lesson I think the teacher intimidated me. I don't think it was particularly the violin itself, but the whole one-to-one lesson environment."
HER SUBSEQUENT PROGRESS was, however, more jaw-drop than tear-jerk. Shortly after her 10th birthday she enrolled in the Yehudi Menuhin school in London, where she was singled out for special attention by the maestro himself. How did that work?
"I'm not too sure, to be absolutely honest," she says. "I don't really remember. I guess he just - I don't know - liked my playing or something. I remember being picked to do this Bach double violin concerto with another girl. He then chose me to do a solo concerto with him."
The concerto never happened, because Menuhin died in the meantime. Nevertheless, both he and the school left their mark on Benedetti.
"Even at that age I picked up on the kind of greatness that came with him," she says. "And it wasn't just because I'd heard his records, and knew the name, and was at his school and all these kinds of things. Definitely when he walked into a room everything changed. It's difficult to put into words the kind of effect these people have on everyone around them. But it was an amazing four or five years for me. I had a wonderful violin teacher there, and I fitted into the environment of the school very well."
Wasn't it difficult, being plunged into such a competitive environment at such a tender age?
"I don't remember anything difficult about it," she says, "other than a bit of homesickness at the beginning. Looking back now, I think it was purely down to how much I loved playing. Everything I did revolved around that. And I was learning all these new things - how to play better, you know? - and there was so much music surrounding me that any difficulties were diluted right down."
The intensive musical training paid off. At the age of 16, Benedetti walked away with the prestigious BBC Young Musician of the Year award and netted a six-album recording contract with the haute couture label of the classical world, Deutsche Grammophon, shortly afterwards.
A fairy-tale ending to the child prodigy story, you might think. But the real story - the adult one - was just beginning. And it's one which would make a behavioural psychologist blench. Mostly, it's a tale of travel madness; of hair-raising schedules and delayed flights and sleeping wherever and whenever she can. There's adulation by the bucketload, of course; but also persistent sotto voce whispering of the poisonous variety.
It has been said that Benedetti's success rests largely on a) her looks; b) her father's money, which bought her a 1751 Petrus Guarnerius from Venice at an age when most kids are still playing on shiny chunks of moulded plastic; and c) the fact that her debut CD featured a concerto by the contemporary Polish composer Szymanowski. Nobody knew the music anyhow, the whispers went, so hey - everybody thought it was great. And the jury - so the whispers continue - still seems to be out on her second CD, a recording of the Mendelssohn violin concerto.
Dublin audiences will get a chance to judge how Benedetti handles this warhorse of the classical repertoire for themselves when she plays it with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gerhard Markson, at the National Concert Hall on Friday.
One thing, however, is certain - in live performance, it won't sound anything like how it sounds on the recording.
"The actual experience of making the recording changes the way you feel about a piece," explains the ever-reasonable Benedetti, "and how well you know it. I've performed it lots of times since then. And with each new group of musicians I work with, each conductor and each performance, I'm always working deeper into the piece and learning more about it."
BUT, GOES ANOTHER of those nasty little whispers, how can a young musician grow and develop in any kind of normal way, while living what is an anything-but-normal life? Benedetti says she practises six hours a day - when she can. Her social life appears to amount to an occasional snatched evening with friends in London, where she now lives. She has just started learning Italian - it was on her "to do" list for ages, she says - and, when travelling, which is most of the time, she just sleeps or reads or studies.
Asking what she's reading at the moment seems like a natural question. But it's this which prompts Benedetti to exclaim, "You're going to think I'm so sad." She is, it turns out, reading The Classical Style by Charles Rosen and - for the second time - The Bach Reader. There's also The Alchemist by the Brazilian new- age guru Paulo Coelho, which somebody gave her ages ago but which - and who can blame her? - she hasn't really started yet.
Happily, she has no time to brood over books. She's about to embark on a European Union Chamber Orchestra tour which will bring her to 10 cities in 11 days, and that's before her Dublin gig even comes into the equation. It's exhausting just to listen to. I hope, I venture warily, she enjoys it.
"I'm sure I will," is the reply. And the extraordinary thing is, it sounds as if she means it.
Nicola Benedetti performs Mendelssohn's violin concerto with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall on Friday, then Leisureland, Galway (Mar 13), UCH, Limerick (Mar 14), Tralee Regional Sport and Leisure Centre (Mar 15) and WIT Good Shepherd Chapel, Waterford (Mar 16)
