One of the world's most complete musicians — as concerto soloist, chamber musician, ensemble leader, festival director and record-maker — violinist Gidon Kremer is virtually in a class of his own. Born in 1947 in Riga, Latvia, and a Moscow Conservatory student of David Oistrakh, Kremer is old enough to have experienced the strictures of the Iron Curtain but young enough to have the opportunity to flourish after its fall.

Kremer's musical enthusiasms range as widely as those of any violinist of the recording era. He has committed to disc practically all of the major Classical, Romantic and early 20th-century violin repertoire, recording the concertante works in league with such conductors as Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein and Nikolaus Harnoncourt; his chamber-music partners in the classics include such extraordinary talents like pianist Martha Argerich and violist Yuri Bashmet. Yet Kremer's greatest contribution has been in the realm of new and undervalued music. He has championed such contemporary East European composers as Alfred Schnittke, Valentin Silvestrov, Arvo Pärt, Giya Kancheli, Sofia Gubaidulina and, from his native country, Peteris Vasks; he has also made the world premiere recordings of violin concertos by Americans Philip Glass and John Adams.

Although Kremer's innovative line of recordings with Teldec ended with the label's recent dismantling, Kremer has solidified his relationship with Nonesuch (the home of several of his Piazzolla discs). This includes an exclusive deal with Kremerata Baltica, the chamber ensemble that Kremer founded in 1996 to provide international opportunities for outstanding young musicians from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. The latest Kremerata Baltica project, released in May 2002, is an album dedicated to compositions of George Enescu (1881–1955). Although he was a superstar violinist, an internationally sought-after conductor and a revered teacher of the likes of Yehudi Menuhin, his own works — woven from the disparate threads of Romanian folk music, French Impressionism and late German Romanticism — have mostly gone unheard. The new Kremerata disc features a chamber-orchestra version of Enescu's Octet, an early masterpiece, along with the mature Piano Quartet; the group will perform the pieces on tour later in the year, including a Carnegie Hall concert in the fall. While in New York in the spring of 2002, Kremer shared his thoughts with andante's Bradley Bambarger on Enescu, on Bach and on the importance of relaying a personal message in music.

Bradley Bambarger: When were you first drawn to the music of George Enescu?

Gidon Kremer: Well, I was first convinced of Enescu's genius when I recorded his Impressions d'Enfance [in 1996], a piece less known than his sonatas for violin and piano. I discovered that there was not a single note of this piece that did not have its place, that did not have a meaning. I especially appreciate scores in which there are no superfluous notes. There are many Romantic compositions and many compositions of today in which there are, unfortunately, superfluous notes. Neither Bach nor Schubert nor Webern has any — everything is in its place, everything has meaning. It's likewise with Enescu's compositions; you get the sense that no matter how wild things get, if you put the score under a magnifying glass, so to speak, everything belongs — a performer just has to bring it out.

GK: From Menuhin, in the frame of a Menuhin concert with his disciples at his summer academy in Gstaad. Later on, I actually played the Octet in its original chamber setting. For our recording, I thought it was worth expanding, so our friend the composer Leonid Desyatnikov made suggestions for a more orchestral voicing, with the Octet built into it. The funny thing is that only after we did this did I find a version of the Octet score with a note on the first page from Enescu saying that, in fact, this piece could be played by an orchestra; he didn't include any ideas for instrumental doubling, saying only that an orchestral version should depend on the conductor's insight. We recorded the piece without a conductor, so we all worked on the aspects of solo/tutti; the Kremerata Baltica works on such things from the inside.

GK: The Octet is a damn hard piece to play, even in the chamber version — the amount of unisons, with their intonation challenges. Then there is the great length of the piece and all the rhythmic details. It demands constant attention and involvement from literally everyone, not only the octet solo players. But the players loved it — it's such a passionate piece. Most audiences, too, seem to appreciate it. Yet Enescu's works are not only challenging to play but to listen to, because there is so much music in his pieces; with the Octet, I think you have to listen to it at least a couple of times before you begin to realize all its wonderful, precious details.

GK: Enescu never belonged to a certain school, so he had difficulties in that he couldn't be labeled. Einstein said, beautifully, that everything he had achieved was not thanks to a school but against a school. I would not say that George Enescu worked against any school; actually, he exulted in many different traditions — not only the tradition of Romanian folk music but the tradition of French music, in its colorfulness, and of German late Romanticism. Yet at the same time, he developed all these different influences in a very individual way, so much so that people then and now have had a difficult time placing him.

Enescu was neither Second Viennese School nor an imitator of folk music in a style ideologically supported by the wishful thinking of a totalitarian government. He was a personality. In this way, he is like Piazzolla, who was misunderstood at first and had many enemies because he was not a traditional tango composer. Some critics at the time thought Enescu was too much like this or then too much like that, but in fact, he wasn't imitating anyone; he spoke in his own powerful, personal voice, one that people just had difficulty hearing. He spoke in this voice even in his youth, as you can hear in the Octet, and then he matured in a very deep way with his opera Oedipus and with the Chamber Symphony and the Piano Quintet.

The Quintet is a piece that I've never heard on any other recording. This work was a real discovery for us when we played it at Lockenhaus. At first, I thought that we might pair the Octet on a record with another Romanian discovery of ours — Lipatti's Symphonie Concertante for two pianos and strings. But then finding and playing Enescu's Quintet, it was obvious that this was ideal company for the Octet. The Octet, written when he was 19, and the Quintet, written 40 years later, show a range of development for Enescu's art. They also underline a certain consistency between the young man and the mature composer, such as the ideas of form and structure, the development of thematic materials through all movements. So, I hope that these two pieces being together on the new album can help more music lovers realize the greatness and vast range of this unique personality.

In part II of this interview, Kremer talks about his recent Bach marathon and his vision for his ensemble Kremerata Baltica.