The four movements of Suite from the Ballet Carmina Krležiana form a unique narrative whole. Certain excerpts continued their life outside their theatre milieu, such as the Dance of the Baroness, which was adapted in 1990 into a piano miniature popular among pianists, and was premiered by the composer’s daughter, pianist Leda Parać. In the “revised” version of the Suite, performed in Zagreb in 2023 for Frano Parać’s 75th birthday, the role of the narrator was restored. Namely, Parać added the narrator’s voice at the end of the work, essentially transferring the ballet finale into the final movement of the suite.
After the Introit, the Pan-symphony and the first bars of the Finale provide “another layer of expressiveness, first of all, in the Alleluia part, through the ritualistic, rhythmic pronunciation of the message of Krleža’s ballad Khevenhiller (It is what it is, as it always has been, and whatever will be will be, as it always is!), the choir takes on a strong semantic role as well.” (B. Špoljarić, The Epic Range of Parać’s Expressiveness, glazba.hr). In 1998, Dubravko Detoni described Parać’s Suite as an allusion to a “Michelangelolike fresco” which, in the end, is certainly the clearest defining phrase. At the same time, musicologist Eva Sedak refers to the almost “epic range of Parać’s artistic expressiveness.”
