Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana (Template:Pron-en), latin for "Songs from Benediktbeuern", is the name given to a manuscript of 254[1] poems and dramatic texts from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces were written almost entirely in Medieval Latin; a few in Middle High German, and some with traces of Old French or Provençal. Many are macaronic, a mixture of Latin and German or French vernacular.
They were written by students and clergy when the Latin idiom was the lingua franca across Italy and western Europe for travelling scholars, universities and theologians. Most of the poems and songs appear to be the work of Goliards, clergy (mostly students) who sent up and satirized the Church. The collection preserves the works of a number of poets, including Peter of Blois, Walter of Châtillon and the anonymous one, referred to as the Archpoet.
The collection was found in 1803 in the Bavarian monastery of Benediktbeuern and is now housed in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. Along with the Carmina Cantabrigiensia, the Carmina Burana is the most important collection of Goliard and vagabond songs.
The manuscripts reflect an 'international' European movement, with songs originating from the following countries, Occitanie, France, England, Scotland, Switzerland, Catalonia, Castille, Germany. [2].
The manuscript
The Carmina Burana (abbreviated CB) is a hand-written manuscript scribed in 1230 by two different writers in an early gothic minuscule on 119 sheets of parchment. In the 14th century, a folio of free pages, cut of a slightly different size, was attached at the end of the text.[3] The handwritten pages were bound into a small folder, called the Codex Buranus, in the Late Middle Ages.[4] However, in the process of binding, the text was placed partially out of order, and some pages were most likely lost as well. The manuscript contains eight minatures) (a term for drawings in illuminated manuscripts): the wheel of fortune (which actually is an illustration from the songs CB 14-18, but was placed by the book binder as the cover), an imaginative forest, a pair of lovers, scenes from the story of Dido and Aeneas, a scene of drinking beer, and three scenes of playing games – dice, ludus duodecim scriptorum, and chess.[5]
Older research took it to be the case that the manuscript was written where it was found in Benediktbeuern.[6] Today, however, there is disagreement in the community of Carmina Burana scholars over the birthplace of the manuscript. What is agreed upon is that, because of the dialect of the Middle High German phrases in the text, the manuscript must be from the region of central Europe that speaks the Bavarian dialect of German, which includes parts of southern Germany, western Austria, and northern Italy, and, because of the Italian peculiarities of the text, it must be from the southern region thereof. The two possible locations of its origin are either the bishop's seat of Seckau in Steiermark, or Kloster Neustift near Brixen in South Tirol.
In support of the first theory: a bishop Heinrich, who was provost there from 1232 to 1243, was mentioned as provost of Maria Saal in Kärnten in CB 6* of the added folio (* denotes the song is in the added folio) and it is possible that he funded the creation of the Carmina Burana; the marchiones (people from Steiermark) were mentioned in CB 219,3 before the Bavarians, Sachsens or Austrians, presumably indicating that Steiermark was the closest location to the writers; also most of the hymns were dedicated to Saint Katharina von Alexandrien (CB 12* and 19* – 22*), who was venerated in Seckau.[7]
The other hypothesis claims that Kloster Neustift near Brixen in South Tirol is the birthplace of the Carmina Burana. In support of this argument, the text's open mindedness is characteristic of the reform-minded Augustine Canons Regular of the time, as is the spoken quality of the writing. Also, Brixen is mentioned in CB 95, and the beginning to a story unique to Tirol called the Eckenlied about the mythic hero Dietrich von Bern appears in CB 203a.[8]
Less clear is how the Carmina Burana traveled to Benediktbeuren.[9] The Germanist Fritz Peter Knapp suggested that, if the manuscript were written in Neustift, it could have traveled in 1350 by way of the Wittelsbacher family, who were Vögte of both Tirol and Bavaria.[10]
Sections
The collection is divided into six sections:
- Carmina ecclesiastica (songs on religious themes)
- Carmina moralia et satirica (moral/satirical songs)
- Carmina amatoria (love songs)
- Carmina potoria (drinking songs - also includes gambling songs and parodies)
- Ludi (religious plays)
- Supplementum (versions of some of the earlier songs with textual variations)
The first section, thought to be of religious songs, is now lost and there is no record of the missing poems. Therefore, it is impossible to trace the manuscript's existence before its mutilation, since manuscripts were usually catalogued by their opening line. The final section was not originally part of the manuscript and is a scholarly reconstruction of some of the poems where differences and emendations have been found buried underneath other texts.
Many of the religious songs and several of the love songs and drinking songs are accompanied by neumes that suggest melodies. Some of the poems have also had corresponding melodies discovered in later manuscript sources.
A typical example of one of the love songs is 13 (85), which highlights the melodious aspect of medieval Latin lyric:
|
|
Musical settings of these texts
Between 1935 and 1936, German composer Carl Orff set 24 of the poems to new music, also called Carmina Burana. The most famous movement is "Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi (O Fortuna)" (Fortuna meaning Fortune in Latin, as well as a Roman goddess). Orff's composition has been performed by countless ensembles.
Other musical settings include:
- Several German bands (including Corvus Corax, Estampie, Qntal, Finisterra, Helium Vola, and In Extremo) regularly use poems from the manuscript as lyrics.
- German band Corvus Corax recorded Cantus Buranus, a full-length opera set to the original Carmina Burana manuscript in 2005, and released Cantus Buranus Werk II in 2008.
- Pieces by German/Norwegian doom/gothic metal band Theatre of Tragedy, such as Amor Volat Undique and Circa Mea Pectora in the song Venus (album Aégis)
- Synth/Medieval, French band Era recorded a Mix called The Mass featuring pieces of O Fortuna from the original Carmina Burana.
- Pieces by the Norwegian gothic metal musical group Tristania (Wormwood from album World Of Glass 2001)
- Pieces by the Swedish medieval inspired band Rävspel och Kråksång translated into Swedish.
- Composer John Paul used a portion of the lyrics of Fas et nefas ambulant in the musical score of the video game Gauntlet Legends. [11]
- Philip Pickett and the New London Consort issued a 4-volume set of Carmina Burana settings using medieval instrumentation and performance techniques.
See also
Footnotes
- ^ Carmina Burana. Die Lieder der Benediktbeurer Handschrift. Zweisprachige Ausgabe, hg. u. übers. v. Carl Fischer und Hugo Kuhn, dtv, München 1991; wenn man dagegen z. B. CB 211 und 211a jeweils als zwei Lieder zählt, kommt man auf insgesamt 315 Texte in der Sammlung, so auch Dieter Schaller, Carmina Burana, in: Lexikon des Mittelalters, Bd. 2, Artemis Verlag, München und Zürich 1983, Sp. 1513
- ^ Carmina Burana, Version originale & Integrale, 2 Volumes (HMU 335, HMU 336), Clemencic Consort, Direction René Clemencic, Harmonia Mundi
- ^ Peter und Dorothe Diemer, Die Carmina Burana, in: Benedikt Konrad Vollmann (Hrsg.), Carmina Burana. Text und Übersetzung, Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1987, S. 898
- ^ Dieter Schaller, Carmina Burana, in: Lexikon des Mittelalters, a. a. O., Sp. 1513
- ^ Joachim M. Plotzek, Carmina Burana, in: Lexikon des Mittelalters, a. a. O., Sp. 1513
- ^ Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, Bd. 3: Vom Ausbruch des Kirchenstreites bis zum Ende des 12. Jahrhunderts, (=Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, neu hrsg. v. Walter Otto, Abt. IX, 2. Teil, Bd. 3), C.H. Beck Verlag, München 1931, S. 966
- ^ Walter Bischoff (Hrsg.), Carmina Burana I/3, Heidelberg 1970, S. XII; Walther Lipphardt, Zur Herkunft der Carmina Burana, in: Egon Kühebacher (Hrsg.), Literatur und Bildende Kunst im Tiroler Mittelalter, Innsbruck 1982, 209–223.
- ^ Georg Steer, Carmina Burana in Südtirol. Zur Herkunft des clm 4660, in: Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 112 (1983), S. 1–37; Olive Sayce, Plurilingualim in the Carmina Burana. A Study of the Linguistic and Literary Influence on the Codex, Kümmerle Verlag, Göttingen,1992; Fritz Peter Knapp, Die Literatur des Früh- und Hochmittelalters in den Bistümern Passau, Salzburg, Brixen und Trient von den Anfängen bis 1273 (=Geschichte der Literatur in Österreich von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, hrsg. v. Herbert Zemann, Bd. 1), Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, Graz 1994, S. 410f
- ^ Carmina Burana. Die Lieder der Benediktbeurer Handschrift. Zweisprachige Ausgabe, hg. u. übers. v. Carl Fischer und Hugo Kuhn, dtv, München 1991, S. 838
- ^ Fritz Peter Knapp, Die Literatur des Früh- und Hochmittelalters in den Bistümern Passau, Salzburg, Brixen und Trient von den Anfängen bis 1273, a. a. O., S. 410
- ^ Gauntlet Legends Designer Diary
References
- Ensemble Unicorn/Ensemble Oni Wytars (under the direction of Michael Posch and Marco Ambrosini, 1997)
- Carmina Burana, Version originale & Integrale, 2 Volumes (HMU 335, HMU 336), Clemencic Consort, Direction René Clemencic, Harmonia Mundi; also on Harmonia Mundi CD.
External links
