This new release from Arts is devoted to the music of one of the most original and approachable composers of recent times, Cristian Carrara. The disc includes six works written for orchestra and string ensemble, five of them featuring solo violin, and one, “Tales from the underground”, for violin and soprano.

Cristian Carrara was born in 1977 and educated in the Friuli region in the north eastern part of Italy. His music is atmospheric and unashamedly emotional, with lushly harmonised tender melodies in slow movements, and pulsing ostinato-driven themes in the faster sections.

Music as instantly appealing and accessible as this can run the risk of descending into nature-documentary or new-age soundtrack cliché, but Carrara’s craftsmanship is sufficient to keep it a convincing distance from such a fate, conjuring instead a sound world of nostalgic neo-romanticism, untroubled by the thornier developments of 20th century music.