Which is the most important: the journey or its destination? For Gidon Kremer, whose professional career has spanned over half a century and spawned more than 120 recordings – many of which have been released on the ECM record label – the journey has in many ways become its own destination. Running in parallel with the violinist and conductor’s ‘external’ journey of extensive concert engagements and recording sessions has been his internal quest to embrace and explore new sounds, styles and musical languages, and to share these discoveries with audiences.

The Latvian continues to share aplenty on ‘Songs of Fate’. The names of Raminta Šerkšnytė and Jēkabs Jančevskis are now added to an increasing roster of composers first introduced by Kremer, ranging from Arvo Pärt and Giya Kancheli back in the 1980s and ’90s to recent additions such as Pēteris Plakidis, Kristaps Pētersons and Georgs Pelēcis. Šerkšnyte˙’s bittersweet This Too Shall Pass, for violin, cello, vibraphone and string orchestra, appears to compress a whole lifetime of memories into less than 10 minutes’ music – fleeting, stuttering solo lines cautiously exchanged between violin and cello in the opening section leading to a tangle of competing melodies against the vibraphone’s ticking clock-like rhythm. Jančevskis’s Lignum inhabits an even wider range of references, its Rautavaara-like introduction of harmonic swells and expressive string lines ending in a fragile cuckoo-clock-like melody on svilpaunieki (birdlike whistling instruments) amid a shower of shimmering chimes.

The central thread that runs through ‘Songs of Fate’ is Kremer’s own journey of self-discovery and identity, however, as heard in the two Jewish-themed works by Giedrius Kuprevičius (sections taken from the composer’s Chamber Symphony, The Star of David and the memorial prayer Kaddish), and in beautiful songlike pieces such as Nocturne and Kujawiak by the ever‑present Mieczysław Weinberg. Accompanied once more by the ever-reliable Kremerata Baltica and also featuring Vida Miknevičiūtė’s searing soprano voice, ‘Songs of Fate’ presents this remarkable musician’s journey in an altogether personal and intimate light.