Carmina Burana

Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed in 1935 and 1936 by Carl Orff, based on 24 poems from the medieval collection Carmina Burana. Its full Latin title is Carmina Burana: Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis ("Songs of Beuern: Secular songs for singers and choruses to be sung together with instruments and magical images"). It was first performed by the Oper Frankfurt on 8 June 1937. It is part of Trionfi, a musical triptych that also includes Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite. The first and last section of the piece are called "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi" ("Fortune, Empress of the World") and start with the very well known "O Fortuna".

The work has been performed on occasion by the Virginia Glee Club, and is notable for giving the Glee Club's mascot Wafna her name.

Text

In 1934, Orff encountered the 1847 edition of the Carmina Burana by Johann Andreas Schmeller, the original text dating mostly from the 11th or 12th century, including some from the 13th century. Template:Ill was a young law student and an enthusiast of Latin and Greek; he assisted Orff in the selection and organization of 24 of these poems into a libretto, mostly in secular Latin verse, with a small amount of Middle High German and Old French. 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.

Structure

Carmina Burana is structured into five major sections, containing 25 movements in 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		I. 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 nobilis	Latin/Middle High German	The noble woods are burgeoning	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
	(b) Swaz hie gat umbe	Middle High German	They who here go dancing around	choir
	(c) Chume, chum, geselle min	Middle High German	Come, come, my dear companion	small choir
	(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		II. 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		III. Court of Love
15	Amor volat undique	Latin	Love flies everywhere	soprano, boys' choir
16	Dies, nox et omnia	Latin/Old French	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 subscribed to a dramatic concept 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 danced version of Carmina Burana was choreographed by Loyce Houlton for the Minnesota Dance Theatre in 1978. In honour of Orff's 80th birthday, an acted and choreographed film version was filmed, directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle for the German broadcaster ZDF; Orff collaborated in its production.

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, is often 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 are often 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.

Reception

Carmina Burana was first staged by the Oper Frankfurt on 8 June 1937 under conductor Template:Ill (1892–1967) with the Template:Ill, staging by Template:Ill and sets and costumes by Ludwig Sievert. Shortly after the greatly successful premiere, Orff said the following 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 to his publisher has by and large been fulfilled: No other composition of his approaches its renown, as evidenced in both pop culture's use 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.

Glee Club performances

• Carmina Burana (1987)
• Spring Tour (2013)

Glee Club recordings

• In Harmony, Love, and Brotherhood (album)

References

Sources

• Kater, Michael H. (2000). "Carl Orff: Man of Legend". Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits. New York: Oxford University Press. https://archive.org/details/composersofnazie0000kate. 
• Taruskin, Richard (2005). The Oxford History of Western Music. 4 "The Early Twentieth Century". Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

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.
• Lo, Kii-Ming, "Sehen, Hören und Begreifen: Jean-Pierre Ponnelles Verfilmung der Carmina Burana von Carl Orff", in: Thomas Rösch (ed.), Text, Musik, Szene – Das Musiktheater von Carl Orff, Mainz etc. (Schott) 2015, pp. 147–173.
• Steinberg, Michael. "Carl Orff: Carmina Burana". Choral Masterworks: A Listener's Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 230–242.
• Werner Thomas: Das Rad der Fortuna – Ausgewählte Aufsätze zu Werk und Wirkung Carl Orffs, Schott, Mainz 1990,.