Emmanuel Vukovich – Resilience

· by Alain Brunet

A solo album by violinist Emmanuel Vukovich, Resilience is the initiative of a musician who is very close to nature and his community. It symbolically and artistically links his environmental and humanist concerns with his idea of “the capacity for resilience”.

The opus opens with three transcriptions of traditional Turkish, Romanian and Serbo-Croatian melodies by Béla Bartók. Vukovich explores these traditional melodies from different cultures at the intersection of East and West. He also expresses the results of his research into the timbres and sonic textures of these musics, notably gathered from a Harvard University collection of over 30,000 aluminum cylinders of epic oral poetry sung in Serbo-Croatian, recordings by Milman Parry in the 1930s and transcriptions by Bartók at Columbia University at the turn of the 1940s. These arrangements follow in the wake of Vukovich’s doctoral research at Stony Brook University (Long Island, NY) with members of the now-disbanded Emerson String Quartet.

Thus, the violin and the performer’s voice intertwine, a a hurdy-gurdy drone (Philippe Sly, co-arranger) can also support the melodic line, evoking morning splendor, lament, inner suffering or the dazzling state generated by nature and its avian fauna. Once again, the aesthetics of contemporary playing contrast with the distant past of the musical sources, creating an astonishing fusion.

The next piece, “Resilient Earth, Four Caprices for solo violin”, composed for Vukovich by the American Sheila Silver, is in 4 movements, and addresses the album’s theme head-on. The stretching and contraction of the melodic discourse to extremes, right down to the finest high harmonics, is clearly the result of solid compositional reflection. All this is coherent and embodied by a tangible sensuality. What’s more, the complexity of this work is less obvious than one might at first think, given the slowness of several passages. Make no mistake… not easy!

Then comes Béla Bartók’s Sonata for solo violin, an angular work in 4 movements, dense, complex and extremely demanding. In fact, this is the last completed score by the brilliant Hungarian composer, expatriated to the USA, who had to rework it until his death to satisfy the demands of his curator, Yehudi Menhuin. Emmanuel Vukovich undoubtedly shines here.

This is followed by a work by the composer Dinuk Wijeratne, a highly gifted Canadian musician of Sri Lankan origin, associated as pianist with the Silk Road Ensemble of the famous cellist Yo Yo Ma. His three-movement Sonata for violin and piano, composed in 2009 and revised in 2022, is a judicious blend of contemporary Western music and more discreet South Asian melodic inflections, with glissandi exploring almost carnatic intervals. Musically educated in Canada, the UK and the USA, Wijeratne is also an excellent instrumentalist, but it is Katherine Dowling who performs the work on piano alongside Vukovich, a work particularly intense in the3rd movement – Moto Perpetuo.

To conclude this recording, the soloist chose Canadian composer Zosha Di Castri and her “Patina for solo violin”. Patina in the sense of patina, in the textural, multi-layered, timbral sense. A few phrases in this piece have a certain vigor, but the whole is mostly calm, contemplative, anchored in the ground. A soft landing, to be sure, but by no means devoid of substance.

Latest 360 Content

Friday night at the Dômesicle – All night long with Jump Source

Friday night at the Dômesicle – All night long with Jump Source

Éli Doyon et la Tempête – Attraper le ciel avant qu’il tombe

Éli Doyon et la Tempête – Attraper le ciel avant qu’il tombe

Barbara Hannigan; Katia et Marielle Labèque – Electric Fields

Barbara Hannigan; Katia et Marielle Labèque – Electric Fields

Fire, Fungi, and Family Fun: The ShazamFest XX Experience

Fire, Fungi, and Family Fun: The ShazamFest XX Experience

Festival de Lanaudière | Kent Nagano: The eternal, and always welcome, return

Festival de Lanaudière | Kent Nagano: The eternal, and always welcome, return

Tyler, the Creator – DON’T TAP THE GLASS

Tyler, the Creator – DON’T TAP THE GLASS

Off Piknic with Gorgon City, Dennis Ferrer, Riordan, and Linska

Off Piknic with Gorgon City, Dennis Ferrer, Riordan, and Linska

Jeff Bridges – Slow Magic, 1977-1978

Jeff Bridges – Slow Magic, 1977-1978

Piknic Electronik | DJ Fuckoff Turns Up The Heat for Pep Rally

Piknic Electronik | DJ Fuckoff Turns Up The Heat for Pep Rally

Orford 2025 | Collectif9: folk that innovates and grooves

Orford 2025 | Collectif9: folk that innovates and grooves

Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | The next global star of Tuareg blues is born, and it is in Montreal

Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | The next global star of Tuareg blues is born, and it is in Montreal

Ruby Creek – Forget Me Not

Ruby Creek – Forget Me Not

Clipse – Let God Sort Em Out

Clipse – Let God Sort Em Out

Ross Lee Finney : Landscapes Remembered

Ross Lee Finney : Landscapes Remembered

Lanaudière Festival | The Sparkle of Strauss, Schumann, and Brahms in Joliette

Lanaudière Festival | The Sparkle of Strauss, Schumann, and Brahms in Joliette

Wet Leg – moisturizer

Wet Leg – moisturizer

Sister Ray – Believer

Sister Ray – Believer

Festival de Lanaudière | Franco Fagioli and the voice of bel canto

Festival de Lanaudière | Franco Fagioli and the voice of bel canto

Nuits d’Afrique | Manamba Kanté, An Undeniable Diva

Nuits d’Afrique | Manamba Kanté, An Undeniable Diva

Nuits d’Afrique | El Gato Negro, A Feline Like No Other

Nuits d’Afrique | El Gato Negro, A Feline Like No Other

Nights of Africa 2025 | A gnawa fusion reactor named Saïd Mesnaoui

Nights of Africa 2025 | A gnawa fusion reactor named Saïd Mesnaoui

Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | Sousou and Maher Cissoko: benevolence and complicity

Nuits d’Afrique 2025 | Sousou and Maher Cissoko: benevolence and complicity

Nuits d’Afrique | Las Karamba And Their Militant Salsa

Nuits d’Afrique | Las Karamba And Their Militant Salsa

Women shine at the Quebec City Opera Festival

Women shine at the Quebec City Opera Festival

Subscribe to our newsletter