“No story, nothing but sensation,” is how Ernest Chausson described his Poème, which – despite this assertion – was at one stage titled The Song of Triumphant Love, after a story by Ivan Turgenev. Sensation was certainly the name of the game in this performance by French-Serbian violinist Nemanja Radulović, however, his voluminous rockstar hair bouncing, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jaime Martín. From the violinist’s decisive first solo note – after the orchestra’s moody opening – to his final, whispering trill in the instrument’s stratosphere, Radulović gave a sinuous, distinctive performance that delivered very much on colour, if not always on the work’s swelling emotion. His vibrato was thoughtfully, and sparingly, employed, his double-stopping fierce in its intensity and his rapport with the orchestra – to whom he turned to duet with Martin and individual SSO players, such as Diana Doherty on oboe or Tobias Breider on viola – spoke of obvious pleasure.

Nemanja Radulović. Photo © Charlotte Abramow/Deutsche Grammophon

But it was in Ravel’s fiendish Tzigane that Radulović really caught fire, attacking the opening cadenza with gritty heft, before backing off suddenly for...