Frano Parać: Carmina Krležiana, Suite from the Ballet iz baleta

The four movements of the Suite from the ballet Carmina Krležiana form a unique dramaturgical whole. Some movements have continued their lives outside the theatrical milieu, such as the composition The Dance of the Baroness, which was adapted in 1990 to the form of a piano miniature popular with pianists, and was premiered by the composer’s daughter, pianist Leda Parać.

In the “revised” version of the Suite, performed in Zagreb in 2023 on the occasion of Frane Parać’s 75th birthday, the role of the narrator was restored to the work. Namely, Parać added the narrator’s voice at the end of the Suite, thereby transferring what originally happens at the end of the ballet to the Suite. After the Introit, in the Pan-symphony and in the first bars of the Finale, it is “primarily about another layer of expressiveness in the part on the text Alleluia, through the ritual, rhythmic recitation of the message of Krleža’s ballad Khevenhiller (As it is, as it always was, as it is, as it always was, as it is, as it is!), the chorus also acquires a strong semantic role”. (B. Špoljarić, from the text The Epic Range of Parać’s Expressiveness, glazba.hr). Dubravko Detoni described Parać’s Suite in 1998 as an allusion to a “Michelangelo-imagined fresco”, which is ultimately the clearest syntagm that determines it. At the same time, musicologist Eva Sedak refers to the almost “epic range of Parać’s artistic expressiveness”.

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