Carmina Burana (Orff)

Cover of the score to Carmina Burana showing the Wheel of Fortuna

Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936. It is based on 24 of the poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana. Its full Latin title is Carmina Burana: Cantiones profanæ cantoribus et choris cantandæ comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis ("Songs of Beuern: Secular songs for singers and choruses to be sung together with instruments and magic images.") Carmina Burana is part of Trionfi, the musical triptych that also includes the cantata Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite. The best-known movement is "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi" ("O Fortuna") that opens and closes the piece.

Text

Main article: Carmina Burana

In 1934, Orff encountered the text in the 1847 edition of the Carmina Burana by Johann Andreas Schmeller. Michel Hofmann, then a young law student and Latin and Greek enthusiast, assisted Orff in the selection and organization of 24 of these poems into a libretto, mostly in Latin verse, with a small amount of Middle High German and Old Provençal. The selection covers a wide range of topics, as familiar in the 13th century as they are in the 21st century: the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of the return of Spring, and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling and lust.

Reception

Carmina Burana was first staged in Frankfurt by the Frankfurt Opera on June 8, 1937 (conductor: Bertil Wetzelsberger (1892-1967), choir Cäcilienchor, staging by Oskar Wälterlin and sets and costumes by Ludwig Sievert). Shortly after the greatly successful premiere, Orff wrote the following letter to his publisher, Schott Music:

"Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, printed, can be destroyed. With Carmina Burana, my collected works begin."

Several performances were repeated elsewhere in Germany. The Nazi regime was at first nervous about the erotic tone of some of the poems, but eventually embraced the piece. It became the most famous piece of music composed in Germany at the time. The popularity of the work continued to rise after the war, and by the 1960s Carmina Burana was well established as part of the international classic repertoire.

Alex Ross wrote that "the music itself commits no sins simply by being and remaining popular. That Carmina Burana has appeared in hundreds of films and television commercials is proof that it contains no diabolical message, indeed that it contains no message whatsoever."

The desire Orff expressed in the letter to his publisher has by and large been fulfilled: No other composition of his approaches its renown, as evidenced in both pop culture's appropriation of "O Fortuna" and the classical world's persistent programming and recording of the work. In the United States, Carmina Burana represents one of the few box office certainties in 20th-century repertoire.

Structure

"The Wheel of Fortune" from the Codex Buranus

Carmina Burana is structured into five major sections, containing 25 movements total. Orff indicates attacca markings between all the movements within each scene.

Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi		Fortune, Empress of the World
1. O Fortuna	Latin	O Fortune	choir
2. Fortune plango vulnera	Latin	I lament the wounds that Fortune deals	choir
I – Primo vere		In Spring
3. Veris leta facies	Latin	The joyous face of Spring	small choir
4. Omnia sol temperat	Latin	All things are tempered by the Sun	baritone
5. Ecce gratum	Latin	Behold the welcome	choir
Uf dem Anger		In the Meadow
6. Tanz		Dance	instrumental
7. Floret silva	Latin/Middle High German	The forest flowers	choir
8. Chramer, gip die varwe mir	Middle High German	Monger, give me coloured paint	choir (small and large)
9. a) Reie		round dance	instrumental
9. b) Swaz hie gat umbe	Middle High German	They who here go dancing around	choir
9. c) Chume, chum, geselle min	Middle High German	Come, come, my dear companion	small choir
9. d) Swaz hie gat umbe (reprise)	Middle High German	They who here go dancing around	choir
10. Were diu werlt alle min	Middle High German	If the whole world were but mine	choir
II – In Taberna		In the Tavern
11. Estuans interius	Latin	Seething inside	baritone
12. Olim lacus colueram	Latin	Once I swam in lakes	tenor, choir (male)
13. Ego sum abbas	Latin	I am the abbot of Cockaigne	baritone, choir (male)
14. In taberna quando sumus	Latin	When we are in the tavern	choir (male)
III – Cour d'amours		Court of Love
15. Amor volat undique	Latin	Love flies everywhere	soprano, boys' choir
16. Dies, nox et omnia	Latin/Provençal	Day, night and everything	baritone
17. Stetit puella	Latin	There stood a girl	soprano
18. Circa mea pectora	Latin/Middle High German	In my breast	baritone, choir
19. Si puer cum puellula	Latin	If a boy with a girl	3 tenors, baritone, 2 basses
20. Veni, veni, venias	Latin	Come, come, pray come	double choir
21. In trutina	Latin	On the scales	soprano
22. Tempus est iocundum	Latin	Time to jest	soprano, baritone, boys' choir
23. Dulcissime	Latin	Sweetest boy	soprano
Blanziflor et Helena		Blancheflour and Helen
24. Ave formosissima	Latin	Hail to the most lovely	choir
Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi		Fortune, Empress of the World
25. O Fortuna (reprise)	Latin	O Fortune	choir

Much of the compositional structure is based on the idea of the turning Fortuna Wheel. The drawing of the wheel found on the first page of the Burana Codex includes four phrases around the outside of the wheel:

"Regnabo, Regno, Regnavi, Sum sine regno". (I shall reign, I reign, I have reigned, I am without a realm).

Within each scene, and sometimes within a single movement, the wheel of fortune turns, joy turning to bitterness, and hope turning to grief. "O Fortuna", the first poem in the Schmeller edition, completes this circle, forming a compositional frame for the work through being both the opening and closing movements.

Staging

Orff developed a dramatic concept he called "Theatrum Mundi" in which music, movement, and speech were inseparable. Babcock writes that "Orff's artistic formula limited the music in that every musical moment was to be connected with an action on stage. It is here that modern performances of Carmina Burana fall short of Orff's intentions." Although Carmina Burana was intended as a staged work involving dance, choreography, visual design and other stage action, the piece is now usually performed in concert halls as a cantata. A notable exception is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra version which features strobe lights and what appears to be flames engulfing the stage, wings and balconies, pulsing intensely in time to the music.

Musical style

Orff's style demonstrates a desire for directness of speech and of access. Carmina Burana contains little or no development in the classical sense, and polyphony is also conspicuously absent. Carmina Burana avoids overt harmonic complexities, a fact which many musicians and critics have pointed out, such as Ann Powers of The New York Times.

Orff was influenced melodically by late Renaissance and early Baroque models including William Byrd and Claudio Monteverdi. It is a common misconception that Orff based the melodies of Carmina Burana on neumeatic melodies; while many of the lyrics in the Burana Codex are enhanced with neumes, almost none of these melodies had been deciphered at the time of Orff's composition, and none of them had served Orff as a melodic model. His shimmering orchestration shows a deference to Stravinsky. In particular, Orff's music is very reminiscent of Stravinsky's earlier work, Les noces (The Wedding).

Rhythm, for Orff as it was for Stravinsky, is often the primary musical element. Overall, it sounds rhythmically straightforward and simple, but the metre will change freely from one measure to the next. While the rhythmic arc in a section is taken as a whole, a measure of five may be followed by one of seven, to one of four, and so on, often with caesura marked between them. These constant rhythmic changes combined with the caesura create a very "conversational" feel – so much so that the rhythmic complexities of the piece are often overlooked.

Some of the solo arias pose bold challenges for singers: the only solo tenor aria, Olim lacus colueram, must be sung almost completely in falsetto to demonstrate the suffering of the character (in this case, a roasting swan). The baritone arias often demand high notes not commonly found in baritone repertoire, and parts of the baritone aria Dies nox et omnia must be sung in falsetto: a unique example in baritone repertoire. Also noted is the solo soprano aria, Dulcissime which demands extremely high notes. Orff intended this aria for a lyric soprano, not a coloratura, so that the musical tensions would be more obvious.

Instrumentation

Carmina Burana is scored for a large orchestra, choir and soloists:

• Woodwinds: 3 flutes (2nd and 3rd doubling piccolos), 3 oboes (3rd doubling English horn), 3 clarinets in B-flat and A (2nd doubling Bass Clarinet, 3rd doubling E-flat Clarinet), 2 bassoons and a contrabassoon

• Brass: 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in B-flat and C, 3 trombones (2 tenor and 1 bass) and a tuba

• Keyboards: 2 pianos, and a celesta

• Percussion: timpani, 2 snare drums, a bass drum, a triangle, several cymbals (crash, suspended and antique), a ratchet, castanets, a tambourine, sleigh bells, a tam-tam, tubular bells, 3 bells, 3 glockenspiels, Gong, and a xylophone

• Strings: 1st and 2nd violins, violas, violoncellos, and double basses

• Voices: SATB mixed choirs (large, small) (all divisi), a boys' choir, a soprano solo, a tenor solo, a baritone solo, and short solos for 3 tenors, a baritone and 2 basses.

A reduced version for soloists, mixed choir, children's choir, 2 pianos and 6 percussion (timpani + 5) was prepared by Orff's disciple Wilhelm Killmayer in 1956 and authorized by Orff himself, to afford smaller ensembles the opportunity of performing the piece.

An arrangement for wind ensemble was prepared by Juan Vicente Mas Quiles (b. 1921), who wanted both to give wind bands a chance to perform the work and to facilitate performances in cities that have a high quality choral union and wind band but lack a symphony orchestra. A performance of this arrangement was recorded by the North Texas Wind Symphony under Eugene Corporon. In writing this transcription, Mas Quiles maintained the original chorus, percussion, and piano parts.

An additional arrangement for concert band was prepared by John Krance and does not include chorus. Various arrangements of different movements for young bands also exist.

Australian classical guitarist Gareth Koch arranged and recorded Carmina Burana for the guitar. It was originally released by the ABC Classics label in 1998 and re-released in 2005.

Notable recordings

• Eugen Jochum with the choir and orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Gundula Janowitz, Gerhard Stolze, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Recorded October 1967 in Berlin's Ufa-Studio, released 1968 (Deutsche Grammophon). This version was endorsed by Carl Orff himself and was the first choice of the BBC Radio 3 CD Review "Building a Library" review in 1995 [1].
• Riccardo Muti with Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus and Arleen Auger, John van Kesteren and Jonathan Summers. Recorded 1979 (EMI), featured in the top three of BBC Radio 3's review and is also recommended by Classics Today [2]
• Leonard Slatkin with Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, RCA 09026 61673-2, featured in the top three of BBC Radio 3's review
• James Levine with Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and June Anderson, Phillip Creech, and Bernd Weikl. Recorded 1984 (Deutsche Grammophon). This version won the 1987 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance.
• Christian Thielemann with the choir and orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Knabenchor Berlin. Released 2003 by Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg. Named "Editor's Choice" by Gramophone.
• Charles Dutoit with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal & Saint Lawrence Choir (Beverly Hoch (s), Stanford Olsen (t), Mark Oswald (bar). 1997, Decca 028945529028. High quality recording technically (balancing orchestra and choir).

See also

• Carl Orff's O Fortuna in popular culture

References

Bibliography

• Babcock, Jonathan. "Carl Orff's Carmina Burana: A Fresh Approach to the Work's Performance Practice". Choral Journal 45, no. 11 (May 2006): 26–40.
• Fassone, Alberto: "Carl Orff", in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London: Macmillan 2001.
• Kater, Michael H.: "Carl Orff: Man of Legend". Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 111–143. ISBN 0-19-509924-9
• Orff, Carl. Carl Orff und sein Werk: Dokumentation. Tutzing: Schneider, 1975–1983. ISBN 3-7952-0154-3
• Steinberg, Michael. "Carl Orff: Carmina Burana". Choral Masterworks: A Listener's Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 230–242.
• Taruskin, Richard: The Oxford History of Western Music. Vol. 4 "The Early Twentieth Century". Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 754–765.

Notes

External links

• [3] Coro Sinfônico Comunitário da Universidade de Brasília Carmina Burana
• Carmina Burana Web Comprehensive site about Carl Orff's Carmina Burana
• Text, Original and Translated in English, as it appears in Orff's libretto
• The complete Carl Orff setting of Carmina Burana in MIDI format
• Notes on Carmina Burana
• "The Lasting Appeal of Orff's Carmina Burana" (sound files at NPR)
• Full lyrics to Carmina Burana
• "Carl Orff: Carmina Burana" (complete performance, 1:11 hours), University Chorus and Alumni Chorus, UC Davis Symphony Orchestra and the Pacific Boychoir at the Mondavi Center (4 June 2006)