She looked gorgeous - a sort of classical Britney Spears. Her hair and couture were obviously styled, though the effect was never forced. And yes, she could play the violin. After nervously adjusting her bra- strap, 17-year-old Nicola Benedetti launched into Chausson's Poème, a piece that could have been written for her sweet tone and perfect intonation.

Given the hype surrounding the BBC's Young Musician of the Year competition, which Benedetti won last year, you might have expected a glib rendering. But no: Benedetti seemed content to let the music speak for itself. There were no bravura flourishes, no attempts visually to hook the audience; just gently understated musicianship. Benedetti was far more self-conscious taking her bow than she was when playing. It was just what you would expect of a talented, well-adjusted teenager who has yet to discover the pressures of expectation.

But would Benedetti, from West Kilbride in Scotland, have been given top billing in a London concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra if she hadn't been young and female? I doubt it. Her debut at the Royal Festival Hall last week raised all sorts of questions about how the classical music industry is trying to reach a wider audience. Benedetti illustrates classical music's potential - and the pitfalls of marketing an unfinished talent.

Benedetti, who studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School but left at 15, knows how to handle herself in public. Interviewed on television, she comes across as wonderfully unaffected. Classical music is in dire need of such a natural communicator, capable of reaching out to her own age group. But judging by her platform manner and the style of her playing she is still an innocent. In music of lyricism and simplicity, this can be touching. It scores a high feel-good rating, conjuring visions of purity and beauty and hope for the future.

But within weeks of Benedetti's BBC competition award, Universal, the recording conglomerate, had signed her up on a £1m contract. She was named a United Nations roving ambassador. She began picking up lucrative engagements, she made her first compact disc, she was dubbed a "celebrity". This sort of hype, enthusiastically endorsed by her manager, her record company and others with a financial stake in her success, creates pressures that could backfire on her. It is the sort of treatment - predicated on high sales turnover - that is normally lavished on a here-today, gone-tomorrow pop idol. Benedetti is being presented to the world as the finished article, when she is plainly not. She needs time to grow. Will she be given it?

It looks to me as if the Benedetti family has fallen into a trap laid by big record companies desperately trying to save themselves from meltdown. Out-manoeuvred by cheaper, slim-line rivals, and dominated by executives who have no interest in classical music, they have given up making recordings as a long-term investment. The only way they can justify their gargantuan overheads is by selling classical artists like pop singers, focusing on a handful and subjecting them to intensive promotion.

Contrast Benedetti with Julia Fischer, a 21-year-old German violinist who made her London concerto debut in December on the same platform as Benedetti. When the teenage Fischer won prizes she did so - unlike Benedetti - against international competition. She did not rush into a lucrative record contract. Instead she took time to develop her concert repertoire. For her public appearances she allowed herself to be mentored by Lorin Maazel, who is not only an experienced interpreter of the classical canon but also a violinist by training.

Fischer's backers took a long-term view: here was an exceptional talent that needed nurturing in a way that did not jeopardise its youthful promise. Her performance of the Elgar concerto with the London Philharmonic was fully formed, intelligent, idiomatic, virtuosic, spontaneous. Her Bartók last month with the BBC Symphony was no less stunning. It is no surprise to find her in the latest Gramophone magazine articulating her philosophy thus: "What people seem to forget is ...I didn't become a violinist to become famous or to earn a lot of money. I'm doing it because I truly believe that music is something that every person needs, and because music can make the world a better place."

Benedetti has achieved financial security, but it's a poisoned chalice. Should she have accepted a London engagement with the RPO and an unknown conductor? The three short pieces she played were all from her debut CD. On one hand it looked like a blatant promotion; on the other there was nothing about Benedetti's behaviour that cheapened the act of performance. The choice of music reflected her state of development. When she is 21, I hope we shall see the full flowering of her talent. I'm not counting on it.