Paganini Fantasy Nemanja Radulovic

• 1 24 Caprices for Violin, Op.1 - Caprice No. 5 03:04
• 2 1. Allegro maestoso 19:41
• 3 2. Adagio 05:24
• 4 3. Rondo (Allegro spirituoso) 09:45
• 5 Cantabile 04:11
• 6 Caprice No. 11 04:37
• 7 Sonate No.12 04:44
• 8 Moses Fantasy 06:56
• 9 Caprice No. 24 05:09
• Total Runtime 01:03:31

Info for Paganini Fantasy

When Nemanja Radulović was asked the reason why he chose Paganini for this new record, he didn’t hesitate in giving this simple answer: “To change his image a little, and show that he’s more than the virtuoso composer.” For while Paganini indeed owes his reputation to his unrivalled instrumental technique, in his music Nemanja Radulović also sees a composer who enabled violinists to feel closer to the human voice. “With all the phrasing that he wrote in this concerto, for example, I really had the impression that I was in an opera; I had the different Acts, and I could imagine the sopranos, the tenors...” Nemanja enthusiastically underlines the extreme musical richness in Paganini; he vaunts his particularly vivid, realistic writing, tinted with nostalgia and melancholy, yet also capable of expressing happiness.

“He was extraordinary as an artist,” went on Nemanja Radulović. Not only in his virtuosity, but also in his music’s ability to leave no-one indifferent, “It’s music that needs to be communicated. You can’t play it just for yourself. It really talks to everyone. It’s important to just let yourself go, as soon as you play that first note; you have to give it everything you have,” explained Nemanja, emphasizing the human aspect of the music on one hand, and also its very difficult side where one has to resist until the very end. This is music which drives limits back.

Paganini, obviously, will always remain associated with the 24 Caprices he composed. “At some point, every violinist confronts at least one of these Caprices,” stresses Radulović, who admits to working on them almost every day: he chooses one or two of them, and they accompany him for several weeks. It’s his way of keeping his left hand in shape.

For this record, Nemanja has recorded the Caprices numbers 5, 11 and 24. These are the ones which have left the deepest impressions on him in concerts, but also during his studies and in competitions. He also likes the parallel drawn between their keys: C major for N°11, A minor for N°5 and N°24. The record begins with the 5th, a Caprice which Nemanja sees as a challenge: to reach its conclusion. “You don’t want to let go; it all goes so fast!” N°11 makes him think of Bach, “a very lyrical overture, with great chords.” As for the 24th, which closes his programme here, it is the most well-known: “The theme has been picked up by an enormous number of composers. It’s already a kind of rhapsody variation,” comments Nemanja, who also chose to include the Moses Fantasy, the famous Variation on the G String; this work also takes him back to his childhood, more precisely to his first international competition in Stresa, Italy. He was nine years old. It was the first time that he played Paganini... And incidentally, he’s found a video of that competition: “It’s quite funny seeing a little kid playing this piece. When you’re a child, you don’t ask yourself half as many questions. When you’re nine years old, the aspects that are a bit technical and virtuoso, they all go down rather well. But afterwards, when you’re a teenager at the Conservatory, that’s when it becomes a lot more difficult,” remembers Nemanja. This version of Moses Fantasy was recorded with pianist Laure Favre-Khan and the string-ensemble Les Trilles du Diable, over an arrangement by the composer Aleksandar Sedlar. This record is also about fidelity: Nemanja Radulović has been playing with the Trilles du Diable and Laure Favre-Kahn for a decade... As for Aleksandar Sedlar, he wrote Spring in Japan 2011, the fifth season of Nemanja‘s previous recording.

Nor was the choice of Japanese conductor Eiji Oue a coincidence. Their meeting dates back to Nemanja‘s last competition — in Hannover, the day was his 18th birthday — and the programme was the concerto by Beethoven. Since then, both artists have appeared together: “He gives everything; he’s one of those conductors who are today the greatest, because they go beyond conducting the orchestra. He makes me play, and he makes each and every instrument play, right down to the last,” explains Nemanja. Together with the RAI Orchestra they chose the Concerto N°1, precisely the concerto where Nemanja could particularly feel that extraordinary proximity between the violin and the human voice. (Text by Jean-Michel Dhuez)

Nemanja Radulovic, violin
Laure Favre-Kahn, piano

Les Trilles du diable:
Guillaume Fontanarosa, violin
Frédéric Dessus, violin
Bertrand Causse, alto
Anne Causse, violoncelle
Stanislas Kuchinski, double bass
RAI National Symphony Orchestra

Nemanja Radulovic
Serbian-French violinist Nemanja Radulović champions the power of music to bring people together with his unique energy and candour, thrilling virtuosity, depth of expression, and adventurous programming. His hotly-anticipated, ‘magical’ (Barry Creasy, musicOMH) BBC Proms debut in 2019 with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Kirill Karabits featured a Barber Violin Concerto whose ‘lyric delicacy and last-movement super-virtuosity were caught to near perfection’ (The Times).

Winner of the 2015 Echo Klassik Award for Newcomer of the Year, Radulović is an artist who seeks to broaden the boundaries of classical music and has amassed a legion of loyal fans around the world who have enjoyed his performances with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Munich Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony in Tokyo, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Orquesta Nacional de España, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hanover, WDR Sinfonieorchester in Cologne, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Belgian National Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI in Turin, Orchestra della Toscana, Tampere Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Copenhagen Phil, Geneva Camerata, Queensland Symphony, Macao Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic, and the Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa.

Signed as an exclusive recording artist to Warner Classics in 2021, Radulović’s recent and forthcoming highlights include an extensive European tour with the Russian State Academic Symphony and Andrey Boreyko; sold-out performances with his ensemble Double Sens at such celebrated festivals as the Folle Journée de Nantes and the Chorégies d’Orange; debut engagements with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, Dusseldorf Symphony, RTE National Symphony in Dublin, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg; the season opening of the Jeunesse Musicale series at the Vienna Konzerthaus; a play/direct performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Munich Chamber Orchestra (resulting in an immediate re-invitation and on-going relationship with the ensemble); and a special collaboration with clarinettist Andreas Ottensamer, accordionist Ksenija Sidorova, and pianist Laure Favre-Kahn, performing to audiences at festivals across Germany, Switzerland and France.

Radulović has an equal passion for the intimacy of chamber music, and is an increasingly active recitalist on the international circuit. He has performed at such notable venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonie, both the Salle Pleyel and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Athens Megaron, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and the Melbourne Recital Centre in Australia. His many recital partners include Marielle Nordmann, Laure Favre-Kahn, and Susan Manoff, the latter with whom he has also recorded a disc of Beethoven Sonatas released on the Decca/Universal Music label.

Radulović also regularly undertakes a play/direct role with his infectious, high-energy ensemble The Devil’s Trills – noted for their ‘immense purity, artistic force, passion, intimacy, and exquisite dynamic choices, leaving the audience in complete astonishment’ (Johannes Seifert, Augsburger Allgemeine) – and his chamber orchestra, Double Sens, which was recently celebrated for their recordings of Bach and Rimsky-Korsakov, as well as The 5 Seasons, a piece that combines Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with a new composition, Spring in Japan, by Aleksandar Sedlar and dedicated to the Japanese tsunami victims in 2011. Their other recent recordings include Paganini Fantasy (2013), Journey East (2014), BACH (2016), Tchaikovsky (2017), and most recently Baïka (2018).

Radulović’s recognition for his work in classical music includes International Revelation of the Year by the Victoires de la musique classique in 2005, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Arts in Niš, Serbia, and an ELLE Style Award for Musician of the Year in 2015. He is the winner of several international violin competitions, such as Joseph Joachim in Hanover, George Enescu in Bucharest, and Stradivarius in Cremona.

Born in Serbia in 1985, Nemanja Radulović studied at the Faculty of Arts and Music in Belgrade, the Saarlandes Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Saarbrücken, the Stauffer Academy in Cremona with Salvatore Accardo, and the world-renowned Conservatoire de Paris with Patrice Fontanarosa.

Booklet for Paganini Fantasy