“If I have a mission as an artist,” he says, “it’s that I want to
share the things I love with all my heart with everyone!” This is why he
loves creating moving musical narratives that transport listeners,
taking them on distant journeys of the imagination. There’s always a
story behind his vision of the works he performs.
Radulović has already looked eastward for some of his Yellow Label recordings. Journey East
evoked the classical past of Central and Eastern Europe with works by
Brahms, Dvořák, Shostakovich – composers inspired by traditional music
and Slavic folk songs. After this album, the violinist turned to the
eternal Bach, creating versions of the Violin Concerto in A minor and
the Double Violin Concerto that offer a Bach of our times, and also
including a viola concerto by Johann Christian Bach. Next came an album
of standard repertoire: Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Rococo
Variations (world premiere recording of new arrangement). And now, with Baïka, which means “story” or “tale” in Serbian, he’s once again exploring the music of Eastern Europe and beyond.
His performance style is impossible to reduce to a simple formula. He
is open to all influences, notably that of the HIP movement, but has no
qualms about giving free rein to a form of modernity when performing
the kind of virtuoso showpieces that are sadly still seen as somehow
second-rate repertoire. He also takes delight in new arrangements of
existing works – extrapolations of the originals that can reveal
entirely new worlds. When putting together a programme, he is more than
willing to be inspired by meetings with other musicians, well aware that
such meetings can generate new stories. Such was the case when it came
to the making of Baïka.
The seeds for this album were sown during the first tour that
Radulović undertook with Sascha Goetzel and the Borusan Istanbul
Philharmonic Orchestra, on which Bruch’s First Violin Concerto and
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade were among the works performed.
During the tour, the violinist used to sit in the auditorium for the
second half of each concert and became increasingly captivated by Scheherazade’s
solo violin part, which represents the voice of the sultan’s eponymous
young bride as she spins her fantastical tales. With the idea of taking
that line and expanding on it, Radulović asked his Serbian composer
friend Aleksandar Sedlar to develop it into a piece for solo violin and
his ensemble Double Sens. The resulting suite – to which the violinist
contributed by helping to write the solo part – is a worthy successor to
the kind of late nineteenth-century bravura violin works composed by
Sarasate and Wieniawski, among others.
Since that first tour, violinist, conductor and orchestra have
continued to work together on a regular basis, and they all met up in
Istanbul to record the Khachaturian Violin Concerto for Baïka. The concerto dates from the Soviet era and reflects modern Armenia, rather than the fairy-tale east conjured by Scheherazade.
Nemanja Radulović has a soft spot for the Armenian-born Khachaturian, whose celebrated Sabre Dance he recorded for Journey East. For Baïka
he chose not only the Violin Concerto, but also the composer’s Trio for
clarinet, violin and piano. The key role played by the clarinet in both
works makes them companion pieces. Here again Radulović was keen to
record with musicians he already knew well and whose talents he hugely
respected: clarinetist Andreas Ottensamer and pianist Laure Favre-Kahn.
The album closes with Aleksandar Sedlar’s Savcho 3, a work
studded with folk tunes from the shores of the Black Sea. Sedlar created
the work by taking an excerpt from his Concerto for saxophone and
orchestra and adapting it for solo violin and Double Sens. Baïka is, then, an album rich in colour and texture, as Radulović’s violin is heard
with full orchestra, then with string ensemble and piano, and finally
in two chamber pieces. The locations in which it was recorded – Berlin,
Belgrade and Istanbul – add to the idea of the eastern travels involved
in its making.