Program Notes

March 27 , 2010

Orff – Carmina Burana

 The “Wheel of Fortune” did not originate as a television show. Long before the age of mass communications, back in ancient Rome, it was widely believed that the goddess Fortuna determined the destiny of mortals by spinning a wheel marked by four fates: “I reign,” “I have reigned,” “I have no reign,” and “I shall reign again.” As allegory, this belief carried forward well into the Christian era.

Sometime in the 13th century, an image of Fortuna at her Wheel was imprinted onto a collection of poems, written in a mixture of Latin, German, and French, composed by so-called “goliards” -- wandering students, clerics, and priests who had left their monasteries in favor of more earthly pursuits. Often earning their keep as entertainers, the goliards (literally, “big mouths”) wrote songs and poetry that poked fun at the clergy and the wealthy, and which often celebrated the joys of wine and women.

That book of goliard poems was eventually lost; but Fortuna herself, it would seem, could not bear to leave the tome in obscurity. In 1803, the book was rediscovered at the monastery of Benediktbeurern near Munich. There it sat for another century and more, known only to a handful of historians.

Flash forward again, to the 1930s. A German composer by the name of Carl Orff had become fascinated by old Latin love poetry, some of which he had set to song already. Orff was better-known, however, for his system of music education, which he had developed as co-founder of the Güntherschule. Employing rhythmic movement and rhythmic music played on rudimentary instruments, his approach was already being mimicked elsewhere.

In 1935, Orff learned from a friend about the book of poems at the Benediktbeurern, known as the Carmina Burana (literally, “Songs of the Beuren”). “On opening it,” he would later recall, “I immediately found on the front page, the long famous picture of ‘Fortune with her wheel’ and under it the lines: O Fortuna, velut luna statu variabilis. Pictures and words seized hold of me.”

Seized is an understatement. Despite having never taken on a large-scale composition before, Orff immersed himself in a grand conception: 24 poems from the Carmina Burana, set to music for full orchestra, chorus, vocal soloists, and boys’ choir, with a battery of percussion instruments that practically count as their own ensemble.

“Destroy everything I have written to date,” Orff wrote to his publisher in the midst of his work on the music. “With Carmina Burana, my complete works will begin!”Those words proved prescient, if incomplete. When premiered in 1937, Carmina Burana was an immediate sensation, and soon became one of the most widely performed large-scale works of the century. But Orff could only foresee part of his own fate. Today, none of his later compositions is performed with any degree of regularity, and only a small few have been released on record. To the world, Orff’s complete works essentially begin and end with Carmina Burana.

Yet what astounding music is to be found in this “one-hit wonder.” Sprawling and episodic, Carmina Burana is structured in four sections, representative of the cardinal points of Fortuna’s wheel: Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi (Fortune, Empress of the World), Primo vere (Springtime), In taberna (In the tavern), and Cours d’amour (The Court of Love). The text ends where it begins, with the ode to Fortuna that Orff found on the book’s frontispiece – thus completing the turn of the wheel.

Musically, Carmina Burana seems as if it comes from another time – or, more aptly, from many times at once. Sensuous chromaticism combines with simple choral harmonies, angelic melodies offset elemental rhythms, and explosive climaxes alternate with hushed reverence – sometimes all within one musical section. In these respects, Carmina Burana echoes the primal percussive expressions that form the basis of Orff’s pedagogical practices, as well as the homophony of medieval choral music and the many faces of early 20th century classical music.

The composition also reflected Orff’s interest in multidisciplinary performance. Orff gave Carmina Burana the subtitle, “Secular Songs for singers and chorus to be sung to the accompaniment of instruments and magical images,” with the intention that it should be presented in staged form, with dancers. It has often been done so; but it is not necessary. Carmina Burana stands on its own as one of the most powerful, direct, and memorable musical works of the 20th century.

Program notes written by Joe Nickell