Pavlos Carrer

Pavlos Carrer (also Paolo Carrer; Greek: Παύλος Καρρέρ; 12 May 1829 – 7 June 1896) was a Greek composer.

Carrer was born in Zakynthos. He studied in Zakynthos and in Corfu. In the early 1850s he moved to Milan, where his first operas and ballets were performed at the stages of the Teatro Carcano and the Teatro alla Canobbiana. In the same city he published some of his salon music. In 1857 he returned to Zakynthos, where Isabella d'Aspeno and La Rediviva were performed. In 1858 excerpts from his opera Marcos Botsaris were performed in Athens in the presence of King Otto. However he was unable to secure its performance in his native Zakynthos because of the occupation of the island by the British who feared the subject of the opera (the Greek war of independence) would increase pro-independence sentiments among the Zakynthos and other Ionian islands population. In mainland Greece, Marcos was first performed in Patras in 1861 and then Athens in 1875. The last of his operas, the neoclassical Marathon-Salamis (1888), had its world-premiere in 2003. Throughout his career, Carrer also worked as a teacher and an orchestra conductor.

Carrer was one of the most popular and widely performed composers in 19th-century Greece, while achieving reputation in Italy. His style has Italian influences, especially from Verdi and the belcanto. However, his musical idiom became more and more personal, not necessarily because he sought inspiration in musical themes of traditional and urban popular music of mainland Greece. He was one of the mainstays of the Ionian school of music of the 19th century and the first Greek music composer to put forward a complete collection of vocal works with national subjects, Greek-language libretti and lyrics and melodies inspired by the folk, as well as the urban popular tradition of Greece. He died in Zakynthos.

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