THE ORIGINS of Goran Bregovic’s music are in the Roma brass bands who combine the scales and melodic structures of their Rajasthani roots with the military brass traditions of the Ottoman Empire and the Slavic culture of the former Yugoslavia, taking in Jewish and Arabic influences along the way.

Unique and with universal appeal, it is a living, breathing testimony to the beauty of cultural interaction and evolution. And no one has done more to bring it to global attention than Mr Bregovic.

His latest project Three Letters from Sarajevo unpicks three specific elements that make up the city’s musical culture — Jewish, Islamic and Christian — and, through a focus on their different styles of violin playing, expands them out to their full glory, before recombining them in a glorious synthesis. Marxist musicology at its finest.

In Jewish Letter, the influence of the Iberian Jews who came to Sarajevo following the fall of Al-Andalus in 1492 takes centre stage. The opening violin solo from Gerhson Leizerson is one of the most exquisite I’ve ever heard, invoking centuries of joy and sadness in the subtlest of inflections.

The brass and strings gently nudge the piece towards its hook and from there into an almost Bollywoodesque orchestral flourish before returning to a delightful minimalist klezmer duet between violin and clarinet.

Muslim Letter features Tunisian soloist Zied Zouari, whose sliding between notes evokes Indian classical as much as Arabian influence. At times the piece evokes the interwar Egyptian sound of the orchestras that played with the likes of the mighty Oum Kalthoum, with their powerful staccato monophonies and pounding rhythms, before the trumpet flourishes bring it unmistakably back to the Balkans.

Finally, Christian Letter — featuring soloist Mirjana Neskovic — begins with a folkish, Celtic-influenced melody, employing more western-sounding scales and even quasi-Gregorian chants. But, just as in Christian history itself, the eastern influence soon makes itself felt, with the emergence of vocals more reminiscent of Orthodox church vocals and even something like Mongolian throat singing.

Bregovic himself is perfectly placed to conduct this cultural exploration. Raised in Muslim Sarajevo by his Croatian father and Serbian mother, he personifies the city’s multiculturalism. He has achieved something quite extraordinary with this suite of pieces.

“God didn’t teach us how to live together,” he reminds us, “it is something we have to work out for ourselves.”

This is a great contribution to that process.