Orff: Carmina Burana - Analyzed and performed (Czech Student Philharmonic)

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67
Czech Student Philharmonic
conductor: Marko Ivanović
host: Petr Kadlec
Carmina Burana outshone everything that Carl Orff (1895 - 1982) created during his long artistic life. Every part of this hour-long composition has a distinctive melodic idea with rhythmic and instrumental suppport. The introductory and closing chorus, invoking Fortune, is one of the most popular musical works in the world. When Carmina Burana received its premiere, on 8th June 1937 in Frankfurt am Main, Orff wrote to his publisher, ֹ‘‘Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, printed, can be destroyed. With Carmina Burana, my collected works begin.’’
The Latin title of the work refers to songs connected with the Bavarian Benedictine abbey Benediktbeuern. It was here that the manuscript of medieval poems and dramatic texts from the 11 - 13th centuries was held. The texts are mostly love lyrics, bawdy verse, disrespectful of authority and satirical, many of them lambasting the society of their time. They are mostly written in Latin although there are some in Middle High German and, here and there, in Old French. They were written by students and clergy at a time when Latin was the lingua franca of European universities, theologians and travelling scholars. The authors are mostly unknown although some hallowed names do appear such as Pierre de Blois, Gautier de Châtillon or Walter von der Vegelweide. Some texts are derived from the works of classical authors such as Ovid and Horace.
The texts used for Carmina Burana display different genres which are typical of Goliard poetry, the verse of travelling students and jesters comprising love songs, drinking songs, irreverent and celebratory songs created throughout Europe - in France, England, Scotland Aragon, Castille and, of course, throughout the whole of the Holy Roman Empire.
Orff came across the collection in 1934 and in the following two years selected and put to music 24 of the poems under the title Carmian Burana although the original title, in Latin, was a little longer Carmina Burana: Cantiones profanæ cantoribus et choris cantandæ comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis (= Secular songs for singers and choirs to be sung to the accompaniment of instruments and magical pictures).
In terms of instrumentation i.e. the use of orchestral instruments Orff is modern; otherwise his choice of simple rhythms and harmonies is “medieval” which makes the work impressively direct and elemental although he was, in some quarters, derided for this. The composer Igor Stravinsky, who regarded Orff as an imitator of his own style, referred to him, in unflattering terms, as a writer of neo-Neanderthal music.
Carmina Burana is written for a large orchestra with three flutes, three oboes, three clarinets and, above all, with a markedly expanded drum section containing, for instance, five timpani, a number of cymbals, castanets, bells, xylophone and also two pianos and a celeste. As well as the mixed male and female choir Orff stipulates a boys’ choir and three solo voices: soprano, tenor and baritone.
The composition received its premiere on 8.6.1937 in Frankfurt am Main as part of the Festival of the General German Music Association, an association founded in 1861 by the composer Franz Liszt. It was in fact the last concert by the association, which had begun to decline as it had fallen foul of the Nazi’s Chamber of Music, whose directives it failed to fulfil and, as a consequence, the Association was abolished. With Carmina Burana Orff received European-wide recognition and, at the same time, cemented his position in the mileu of Nazi Germany where, in 1933, The Militant League for German Culture had designated him -- together with composers Igor Stravinsky, Ernest Toch, Bela Bartok and Paul Hindemith - as a ‘‘cultural Bolshevik’’.
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