Carmina Burana (Orff)

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This article is about Carl Orff's musical composition. For the medieval collection of poems, see Carmina Burana.
The cover of the score to Carmina Burana showing the Wheel of Fortuna
The cover of the score to Carmina Burana showing the Wheel of Fortuna

Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff between 1935 and 1936. It is based on 24 of the poems found in 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 magic images.") Carmina Burana is part of Trionfi, the musical triptych that also includes the cantata Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite. The best-known movement is the bracketing "O Fortuna" chorus that opens and closes the piece.

Contents

[edit] Text

Main article: Carmina Burana

Orff first encountered the text in John Addington Symonds's 1884 publication, Wine, Women, and Song, which included English translations of 46 poems from the collection. Michel Hofmann, a young law student and Latin and Greek enthusiast, assisted Orff in the selection and organization of 24 of these poems into a libretto including both Latin and Middle High German verse. The selection covers a wide range of secular 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.

[edit] Instrumentation

Carmina Burana is scored for 3 flutes (two doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (one doubling English horn), 3 clarinets in B flat (one doubling E flat clarinet, one doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in F, 3 trombones, tuba, 2 pianos, celesta, a large percussion section and strings.

The percussion section consists of 5 timpani (one piccolo), 3 glockenspiels, xylophone, castanets, ratchet, 3 bells, triangle, antique cymbals, crash cymbals, sleigh bells, suspended cymbal, tam-tam, tubular bells, tambourine, snare drum and bass drum.

The vocal parts include soprano solo, tenor solo, baritone solo, soli of 3 tenors, baritone, and 2 basses, a large mixed choir (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), a chamber choir (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) and a children's choir (ragazzi).

A reduced version for soloists, mixed choir, children's choir, 2 pianos and percussion was prepared by Orff himself, to afford smaller ensembles the opportunity of performing the oratorio.

[edit] Structure

Carmina Burana is structured into five major sections each of which contains several individual movements. Orff indicates attacca markings between all the movements within each scene.

  • Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi [Fortuna, Empress of the World]
  • Primo vere [Spring] - includes the internal scene Uf dem Anger [In the Meadow]
  • In Taberna [In the Tavern]
  • Cours d'amours [Court of Love]
  • Blanziflor et Helena [Blanziflor and Helena]

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:

"Regno, Regnavi, Sum sine regno, Regnabo" [I am reigning, I have finished reigning, I am without reign, I shall reign]

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 by consisting of both the opening and closing movements.

[edit] 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 and rhythmic complexities, a fact which draws scorn on an aesthetic level from many musicians, although considering the complicated compositional techniques favored by almost all other renowned composers of the day, the work may also be considered in this respect extremely bold.

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; no such assigned melodies can be found in the Burana Codex. His shimmering orchestration shows a deference to Stravinsky.

Rhythm for Orff, as for Stravinsky, is often the primary musical element. Overall, it sounds rhythmically straightforward and simple, but the meter 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.

[edit] Staging

Orff developed 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.

[edit] Reception

Carmina Burana was first staged in Frankfurt by the Frankfurt Opera on June 8, 1937 (Conductor: Bertil Wetzelsberger, Choir Cäcilienchor, staging by Otto Wälterlin and sets and costumes by Ludwig Sievert). Shortly after the greatly successful premiere, Orff wrote the following letter 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."[1]

Several performances were repeated elsewhere in Germany, and though the Nazi bureaucracy was at first nervous about the erotic tone of some of the poems,[2] they eventually embraced it and it became the most famous piece of music composed in Nazi Germany.[3] 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 repertory.

Alex Rossi writes: "[Although Orff had collaborated with the Nazis] 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."[1]

In retrospect the desire he expressed in the letter to his publisher has by and large been fulfilled: No other composition of his approaches its renown as evidenced in both pop culture's appropriation 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 music.

[edit] Notable recordings

[edit] Carmina Burana in pop culture

The music of Carmina Burana, particularly the famous "O Fortuna" movement, appears in numerous movies and commercials and has been covered and sampled by many bands. "O Fortuna" was first introduced to mainstream media in John Boorman's 1981 film Excalibur. It enjoyed tremendous popularity among the public following the movie's release and was for a time thereafter frequently incorporated into various cinematic and musical works for dramatic effect (a practice that has since become cliched and consequently is often parodied). "O Fortuna" has been featured in such diverse films as The Doors, Glory, and Natural Born Killers, as well as in many television commercials such as the barbarian raider advertisements for Capital One credit cards, and the long running TV advertising campaign for Old Spice aftershave in the United Kingdom.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Orff, vol. IV, 66.
  2. ^ Kater, 123.
  3. ^ Taruskin, 764.

[edit] References

  • 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.
  • Kater, Michael H.: "Carl Orff: Man of Legend." Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 111-143. ISBN: 0195099249
  • Orff, Carl. Carl Orff und sein Werk: Dokumentation. Tutzing: Schneider, 1975-1983. ISBN: 3795201543
  • Steinberg, Michael. "Carl Orff: Carmina Burana." Choral Masterworks: A Listener's Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 230-242.
  • Taruskin, Richard: The Oxford History of Western Music. Vol. 4 "The Early Twentieth Century." Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 754-765.

[edit] External links

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