Musical Moments #41
“Delight must be the basis and aim of this art. Simple melody—clear rhythm.”
Gioachino Rossini
Carmina Burana
Excerpts from “Spring”
Carl Orff (1895-1982)
From the first downbeat with the huge gong explosion, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana is as rhythmically visceral a work as exists. Orff intended Carmina as a staged work involving dance, choreography, visual design, and other stage action, as Orff described it, “Theatrum Mundi.” This epic piece has become a 21st century musical staple and is a regular for the Bach Festival Society. While we have performed it as a cantata, I think I can speak for the Bach Choir when I can say we have loved working with the Orlando Ballet on numerous occasions in presenting this masterpiece as it was intended.
In 1935, Orff was introduced to an 1847 publication of texts found in the Benecdiktbeuern monastery in the Bavarian Alps. The title Carmina Burana is translated “Songs of Beuren,” and Orff chose twenty-four of the hundreds of texts ranging from fine poetry to simple rhythmic ditties with languages varying from medieval Latin to Old German and French. Some of the texts are elegant and sophisticated and some are bawdy and crude. If an audience understood medieval Latin, we might have to change the PG rating!
The premier in 1937 was a huge public success causing Orff to write his publisher saying, “Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, printed, can be destroyed. With Carmina Burana, my collected works begin.” He nailed it. He is for all practical purposes, a one hit wonder even though this piece, along with Catulli carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite, complete a trilogy.
The work itself is separated into three parts: “Spring,” “In the Tavern,” and “The Courts of Love.” The basic theme throughout the work highlights the goddess of fate, and the opening movement, “O Fortuna,” speaks to the fickleness and cruelness fate often thrusts upon humanity.
Today’s offering opens with the iconic “O Fortuna” which has found its way into our popular culture through movies and advertisements and keeps you in “Spring.” The next musical offering will take you to the “Tavern,” on the way to “The Courts of Love.”
This archival recording of the Bach Choir and Orchestra is from 2003.
Why does Carmina have such popular appeal? It seems to me that Orff centered this work on two of music’s basic fundamentals: rhythm and melody. There are few dynamic ambiguities, mostly loud or soft, with common terraced dynamics. The harmonies are predominantly tertian with orchestral colors usually rich or bold. Carl Orff took an interesting text and went back to the basics, adding drama, and appealing to our primeval sense of rhythm. Or maybe I should quote one of my Rollins students when asked what he thought of singing the work. His response: “Loud is good and fun is fun.” Ok, that works too.
“Rhythm is both measurable and immeasurable….akin to nature, and yet the sensitive child of the muses….The domain of rhythm extends from the spiritual to the carnal…..”
Bruno Walter