Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Violoncello and Piano

Frano Parać (Split, 1948.) graduated in music theory and composition in the class of Stanko Horvat from the Zagreb Academy of Music and then went to Milan to study under Marino Zuccheri at the Studio di fonologia musicale della RAI. He has been a lecturer at the Music Academy in Zagreb since 1978 and professor of composition since 1992. He was also dean of the Academy from 1985 to 1987 and from 2002 to 2007. In 1992 he was elected as an associate member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and in 2008 as an ordinary member. He has been awarded many prizes. Frano Parać composed his Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano in 1991. The work was created on the basis of the idea of four Croatian composers and professors at the Zagreb Academy of Music about works which would be inspired, on the one hand, by Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps and on the other, by the events associated with the war in Croatia at the beginning of the 1990s. „Quartet is a typical segment of Parać's continuous line of creativity from Collegium vocale through Music for Orchestra to String Quartet. It is a simple piece of music which is well laid out and derives from the classical rondo; it has an orderly alternation of group and individual situations in which each instrument comes equally into its own. The main theme is always heard at the emergence of the joint blocks, while the independent performances of the instruments represent brief filigree-fine interludes. Similarly to a valid conclusion to a discourse, the work ends with a promise of sorts, an announcement of what can be expected: an almost solemnly argumented, jointly expressed theme in a subdued but also effective dynamic.“ (Dubravko Detoni)