Cristian Carrara (born 1977 and educated in the Friuli region in the northeastern part of Italy) ranks among the most creative composers of his generation. He decided to win back this simple clarity which had been driven back under the wrong dictate of the avant-garde. This simple clarity in the compositions of Carrara can be observed when listening to his music and when looking at the sheet music, even with an untrained eye. We know that a body (its beauty, its state of health) can best be assessed when it is naked and not when it is hidden by frippery. Therefore Carrara paradoxically risks more than anybody else who masks his work with the complexity, which perhaps conceals a slender body.

The core of the Mater is a tabula rasa, which is open in its tonality. Carrara plants on it a consonant, mild recitation. Face to Face, also for string orchestra, receives its title from a deeply philosophic passage from the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. Liber Mundi, for violin, soprano and orchestra, is a dialogue which developes out of the initial mistrust of the dialogue partners. The instruments imitate each other: first the violin, then the clarinet, then the soprano. Initially they are saying the same, before they get aware of themselves and communicate not only with one another but also with the world, which in this case means the orchestra. In the Tales from the Underground the orchestra does not play together all too often, too. Only seldomly all instruments can be heard together and build a wall of sounds reflecting the dimensions of Strauss. More calming and more familiar is A Peace Ouverture. It has a clear theme, in the beginning exposed by the orchestra and then taken up by the soloist violin and many times repeated. An unambiguous homage to Ennio Moricone is East West Romance: This applies on one hand for the title, but on the other hand also for the first beats, which are very much like the theme of C’era una volta in America (film by Sergio Leone from the year 1984)

Federico Capitoni

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Recorded in Parma, Italy, September 20-23, 2011