Nemanja Radulović takes complete control of every aspect of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, playing the solo part while leading his own chamber orchestra, Double Sens. Of course, conducting from the fiddle is a centuries-old tradition, but what Radulović ´ accomplishes in this performance is remarkable as every element of the score is presented with near total interpretative unanimity. Listen, say, at 5'38" in the first movement, where he darkens his tone as the music slips into the minor mode, and then how he has the orchestra follow suit. Indeed, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard an account of this work where the details sound so all of a piece.

It’s an unusually characterful performance, too. I love how expressively Radulović emphasises the rests at the beginning of the Larghetto, for example, and then how tenderly he explores the change in tonal colour for the new theme at 4'48". He sustains a mesmeric hush throughout the movement, in fact, so his peppy, almost breathlessly high-spirited reading of the finale feels particularly fresh. He plays the long semiquaver passages in the latter brilliantly yet in a way that’s not at all flashy; try at 3'17", where he accompanies the bassoon solos in smoothly undulating phrases.

Similar care is lavished on the Serbian violinist’s arrangement of the Kreutzer Sonata. I’m not sure I fully understand the urge to clothe this work in orchestral guise – this version follows those by Paul Struck (Naxos, 4/21), Eric Jacobsen (Avie, 11/22^US) and Rubén Rengel (DG, 10/23) – but Radulović's is an exhilarating ride, there’s no question. If you want to sample Double Sens’s collective virtuosity, listen to how they rip into the passage at 11'35" in the opening Presto, although I think I was most impressed with how Radulović shapes the Andante con variazioni, moving the first two variations along (one faster than the next) to set the delicate chiaroscuro of the Minore (Var 3) in stark relief.

I fervently hope Radulović records the Kreutzer Sonata in its original form, even if he’ll need an extraordinary pianist to match what Double Sens give us here in terms of precision and musicality. For me, though, it’s the Violin Concerto that’s the prize on this disc. It’s a dazzling, profoundly personal interpretation, and I’m already completely obsessed with it.