SYNOPSIS

After Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, few choral works have penetrated the pop culture consciousness deeper than Carl Orff’s 1936 opus Carmina Burana. The opening “O Fortuna” movement has become ubiquitous in commercials, movies, and countless videos on social media. Though Orff composed two subsequent works as companion pieces—Catulli Carmina (1941–1943) and Trionfo di Afrodite (1949–1951)—Carmina Burana remains the most visible member of the triptych as well as the composer’s wider body of stage works, operas, and choral compositions.

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Composed in 1936, Orff’s Carmina Burana received its world premiere in a staged performance at the Frankfurt Opera on June 8, 1937; it received its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall on November 21, 1954, with soloists Jean Bowers, Dorothy Hickey, Leslie Loosli, Ruth Ann Tobin, Frances Marsh, Elmer Dickey, Kenneth Shelton, and John Colleary; the St. Thomas Church Boys Choir; and the Boston University Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

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Orff’s source text was an edition of songs and poems from a 13th-century codex first discovered in the Bavarian monastery of Benediktbeuern in 1803. Its eventual published title, Carmina Burana, translates to “Songs of Beuern.” The individual poems date from the 11th and 12th centuries, with the majority written in Latin and a smaller number in vernacular German and French of the periods. While some named authors survive in the collection, many of the poems were written by anonymous Goliards, well-educated student clerics whose works often satirized the Church of Rome and who made liberal use of pagan symbols and imagery. The codex later entered the collection of the Bavarian royal family, and was edited for publication in 1847 by Royal Court and State Librarian Johann Andreas Schmeller. Orff came into possession of a second-hand copy of Schmeller’s edition in 1934. In Orff’s telling, the imagery of the opening text, “O Fortuna / velut luna / statu variabilis,” instantly transfixed him, and he began composition. With his friend and collaborator Michael Hoffmann, Orff sifted through the massive codex to find the poems that would best suit the “scenic cantata” he envisioned. There are no conventional throughline or characters, but rather self-contained vignettes that create a world unto themselves.

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Orchestrally, the score of Carmina Burana relies upon a large ensemble with an enormous battery of percussion. The work contains 25 individual movements separated into four major sections and a prologue, “Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi” (“Fortune, Empress of the World”). The opening chorus, “O Fortuna,” conjures the relentless drive of Fortune with its four-note motivic idea, pulsating rhythms, and gradually expanding orchestral canvas. The lament over the fickleness of Fortune continues in “Fortune plango vulera,” with Orff using a strophic scheme alternating men’s voices with the full chorus.

 

The first section of the score falls into two parts, with the first entitled “Primo vere” (“In Spring”). The movement “Veris leta facies” begins with an awakening call from high woodwinds and piano before the chorus rises from the lowest registers to greet the change of seasons. “Omnia sol temperat” presents the first solo voice in Carmina Burana, a baritone who compares the joys and pains of Love to Fortune’s inconstancy. “Ecce gratum” is a choral ode to Spring, brightly invoking the spirit of folk dances in another strophic plan.

 

The second part of the first section, “Uf dem anger” (“On the Green”), opens with a literal dance for orchestra, emphasizing strings, woodwinds, and horns. Another choral ode in Latin and German follows, “Floret silva,” praising the newly flowered forest and the games it offers younger lovers. The spirit of playful love continues in “Chramer, gip die varwe mir,” now with the addition of sleigh bells. The ninth number in the score, “Reie,” opens with another dance for orchestra followed by a succession of choral passages that alternate between erotic courtship and outburst. The brief final movement of “On the Green” opens with grandiose fanfares and proclamations but ends smuttily with a lusty statement about the Queen of England.

 

“In Taberna” (“In the Tavern”) forms the central section of Carmina Burana and presents various songs inspired by drinking and carousing. The solo for baritone “Estuans interius” is another jeremiad about the misfortunes of love. The rotating misery of Fortune takes a humorous guise in the movement “Olim lacus colueram,” with a tenor singing the plaintive song of a swan as it roasts on a spit. “Ego sum abbas” parodies monkish plainchant as the baritone assumes the character of a drunken abbot. The final movement, “In taberna quando sumus,” conjures up the whole rowdy world of a tavern with its gambling, drinking, and debauchery as if it were a Breughel canvas come to life.

 

The mood goes fully amorous and ribald in the next section, “Cour d’amours” (“The Court of Love”). The opening movement, “Amor volat undique,” features children’s voices smugly praising couples in love while the soprano soloist depicts the pain of those who remain alone. “Dies, nox et omnia” presents the lovelorn baritone, the love’s sorrows pushing him to the highest reaches of his tessitura. “Stetit puella” presents a statuesque vision of a young girl adorned in red, perhaps the same sweetheart the baritone pines for in “Circa mea pectora.” “Si puer cum puellula” presents the baritone and solo members of the chorus acapella, extolling the delights of fleshly love. The full chorus returns in “Veni, veni, venias” in another roundelay of lust. A meditative air returns with the soprano’s solo movement, “In trutina,” as the choices of desire and chastity are weighed. “Tempus est iocundum” pours forth in joyous waves as the soprano, baritone, chorus, and children’s chorus exalt the games of love before the soprano swoons in stratospheric ecstasy in “Dulcissime.”

 

The final section contains two movements. First, the epic “Ave formosissima” extols the great beauties of medieval literature: the princess Blancheflour, Helen of Troy, and the goddess of Love herself, Venus. Then, like a cataclysm, the true queen returns in all her fury—Fortune, Empress of the World, and the “O Fortuna” closes out the work.