Carl Orff's Carmina Burana - Primitive , Lusty And Irresistable
The German composer Carl Orff (1895 -1982 ) achieved worldwide fame for only one work , the exuberant cantata Carmina Burana (pronounced CAR-mi-na) , which is based on Medieval poems , generally by University students and monks who had escaped the rigors of the religious life in order to enjoy the pleasures of wine, women and song as well as gambling . Other poems bewail the fickle finger of luck, or the Roman goddess Fortuna .
Orff was born in Munich in 1895 , he studied conventional composition but became interested in what the liner notes to the recording I've been listening to as "the medieval , the religious , and in music as an accompaniment to theatrical action ." Carmina Burana was first performed in Frankfurt in 1937 at the height of Nazi power , but Orff was aquitted of colaboration after the war , and continued to produce other cantatas and oratorios based on Greek and Roman antiquity , and operas based on Bavarian folklore , none of which ever achieved anything near the success of Carmina Burana, although they have been recorded . Orff also became involved in techniques of music education for children using simple instruments which are still used today .
Carmina Burana is described as a "Profane Canata " and the medieval poems it uses were found in a collection at the Benediktbeuren monastary in Bavaria over a century ago ; Carmina Burana means songs of the Benediktbeuren monastary . It's writen for a large orchestra with ample percussion , plus chorus and soprano, tenor and baritone soloists . The style is deliberately primitive and medieval-sounding , with hauntingly repetitious but irregular rhythms , relatively simple harmonies and extremely catchy melodies . It vividly conjures an earthy medieval world of lustful young men, pretty flirtatious girls , gamblers lamenting fickle fortune, and lusty drinking songs . Some of the latin and medieval High German poems are quite bawdy .
You may have heard the haunting opening on television commercials and films - Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi - Fortune, empress of the world . Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes not . This is for the massed chorus and orchestra .
The next section is Primo Vere - a celebration of the coming of spring , after which comes "Auf Dem Anger", German for on the green, or on the meadow . Now the poems are in medieval high German The are merry round dances , and the young people flirt shamelessly .
In Taberna celebrates the joys of drinking merrily in the tavern, and of gambling . The baritone sings the jolly song of a huckster who cheats gamblers and robs them of everything . A tenor singing falsetto sings the lament of a swan who has lost his freedom and is being roast on a spit .
Cour D'Amours celebrates idealized medieval courtly love , and the soprano soloist sings ecstatically . But the chorus celebrates unbridled lust and sings away naughtily . But the work ends sternly with a repeat of the opening chorus lamenting the rise and fall of fortune . So ends this exuberant and colorful work .
There are many, many recordings of Carmina Burana, and even a live performance on DVD . One of the most famous is conducted by the eminent German maestro Eugen Jochum , with the chorus and orchestra of the German opera in what was them West Berlin , which was recorded under the composer's supervision and is considered absolutely authentic . But other distinguished conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Michael Tilson Thomas, Eugene Ormandy, Andre Previn , James Levine , Herbert Blomstedt, Leonard Slatkin etc have also recorded Carmina Burana . It's pure pagan fun !