Violinist Daniil Bulayev on his debut album of Bloch, Enescu and Ysaÿe

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It’s a very difficult moment when one of the closest and dearest people in your life passes away. Bloch dedicated his suite Baal Shem to the death of his mother. My father passed away in November 2021, which was a month after I won the Windsor Festival International String Competition. When I found out that I would have the opportunity to record a CD, I initially planned that the programme would comprise rare works that are not recorded and performed as often as the ‘golden’ violin and chamber music repertoire.

To be honest, I didn’t plan to record this particular Bloch cycle at first. It is very difficult and full of different emotions, experiences, and it seemed to me that it was too early for me to work on it.

The disc recording was postponed until November 2023, due to Covid and other global situations. I had already thought about numerous versions of the album programme, but because of all the situations in the world, plus experiences, moments and thoughts from my personal life during this time, I then decided to record this cycle.

The work contains three parts, each with their own meaning and subtext. I could understand, realise, feel what it is like when you lose a loved one because of my current family situation. For me, many aspects of the musical language of this work were already clear. When I listen back to my recording, I realise that now I would have played a lot differently, because I’ve grown up and my life views have adjusted slightly, but this recording captures my feelings and experiences in that moment. And in the future, I hope to return to this work and constantly feel something new, as people change, develop, their views on life may change, and very different situations in life occur.

Each work on this disc means a lot to me, not just the Bloch, with separate emotions and feeling for each piece. For me, Bloch represents love for your close ones, emptiness when they leave, prayer, awareness, as well as eternal, warm and good memories. Ysaÿe’s Poeme elegiaque is a kind of love story which could be for a person, life or for the world. This is the ’flight’ of emotions; the feeling when the soul is breaking by the moment that something cannot be as we would like, because of injustice in life.

Enescu’s Octet is in sunny C major, filled with love, butterflies in the stomach, but at the same time resembles heavy metal, a waltz of some slightly crazy images and a huge drive. Generally speaking, all the works are united by one emotion – love, in all its different manifestations.

Bloch’s Baal Shem is very spiritual – on the one hand, all classical music is ‘spiritual’ in some way, because music is also called ‘spiritual’ food. On the other hand, the Bloch refers to such a list of works that are directly related to God, as it is a kind of prayer for its people. Franck, Messiaen, and other composers have such works, each requiring a separate understanding and approach. Fortunately, I was lucky with this opus, because I felt an understanding of what emotions and experiences were written in the piece. And in general, Bloch’s music is very close to me. I am also of Jewish origin and these motifs and melodies were immediately clear to me. I love his violin sonatas madly!

I am extremely glad and grateful to my colleague Maxim Tanichev for the work we have done together, regarding interpretation, sound and emotions. I have been playing with him for more than four years and I feel that we understand and hear each other perfectly to play in the same direction, which is very important in music.

I am also incredibly grateful to the soloists of my Davinspiro Camerata Chamber Orchestra. Although our musicians are quite young, each of the musicians has an interesting personality. Everyone sees or feels something different musically, but at the same time we all breathe together before the beginning of a piece or a new phrase and all get great pleasure from playing music together. When you can do this in a large friendly group of musicians playing together, it brings even more energy, inspiration and a desire to learn new works, set new musical goals and go towards them!

Daniil Bulayev’s album of works by Enescu, Bloch, Ysaÿe will be released on Champs Hill Records on 17 January 2025.

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