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Program Notes for Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Classics Special - Carmina Burana - 25 October 2014
By Laurie Shulman ©2014
First North American Serial Rights Only
Carmina Burana
Carl Orff
Born 10 July, 1895 in Munich, Germany
Died there on 29 March, 1982
Approximate duration 65 minutes
Carmina Burana catapulted Carl Orff to international fame in 1937 and has remained in
the standard repertoire ever since. Orff's other compositions are curiosities that are rarely
performed or recorded. His most enduring legacy apart from Carmina Burana is the educational
materials he developed for children. Carmina remains his crowning achievement as a composer.
An ancient manuscript: the sacred and the profane
Orff took his texts for Carmina Burana from a manuscript in Bavaria’s Benedictbeuern
monastery; its contents were first published in 1847.
Dating from the 11th through 13th
centuries, the poems are in medieval German, Latin, and old French. They deal with love,
religion, and moral issues, both worldly and metaphysical. Authors of diverse backgrounds must
have contributed to the compilation. Simple language in some of the poems ranges from naïve to
vulgar. More sophisticated texts include both cynical and philosophical points of view.
Orff believed that music and words were powerfully connected. He thought of Carmina
as a theatrical cantata. While Carmina Burana is presented almost exclusively in concert form
today, the original texts are highly dramatic, a perspective that is essential to an understanding of
Orff's unique settings.
As a composer, Orff was a late bloomer. He studied at Munich’s Akademie der Tonkunst.
Years of work as a theatrical rehearsal pianist gave him a keen understanding of the mechanics
of drama. In the 1920s he adapted several works by Monteverdi for the stage. He later directed
the Munich Bach Society for several years. These experiences developed his strong interest in
early music.
Reconciling old and new
Orff became acquainted with the Benedictbeuern manuscript in the early 1930s. He was
fascinated by its medieval languages and by the cover of the illuminated manuscript, depicting a
wheel of fortune. Its musical manifestation was the massive hymn to Fortune that frames
Carmina Burana.
He selected his texts with discrimination. Most of his choices are in old German and
Latin. His music echoes the simple and naïve style of the poems. Carmina contains primarily
strophic songs with little or no variation in verses. Orff’s melodies are diatonic and frequently
scalar, which sometimes gives them the flavor of Gregorian chant.
His rhythm, by contrast, is enormously complex. Vibrant, driven, and atavistic, the
primitive pulsation of Carmina Burana unites medieval peasantry with sophisticated orchestral
effects. An expanded percussion section provides much of the vivid color in Carmina. The score
also calls for two pianos, which supersede the more conventional role that might be taken by
harp in another composer's work. Their combined role flavors some choruses (Ecce gratum) and
dominates the musical fabric in others (Veni, veni, venias).
The big picture: a journey from springtime, to the tavern, to consummated love
The work divides into three principal segments. They are preceded by Fortune, Empress
of the World, which serves as an introduction and returns to conclude the work. The first section,
Spring, is a celebration of youth and the promise of the season. It introduces the theme of love
and the eternal games played by young people of both sexes seeking to attract one another.
Part II, In Taberna [In the Tavern] belongs to the men: the tortured hypocrite with
craven heart (baritone solo); the swan roasting on the spit, lamenting his former domain as he
contemplates being devoured by the hungry men who fill the tavern (tenor solo and men's
chorus); the corrupt abbot who drinks, among other vices (baritone and men's chorus), and
finally In taberna, one of the greatest drinking songs ever composed.
Part III is called The Court of Love. Orff manipulates the texts and his musical resources
in a mini-drama of contemplated love, indecision (In trutina, soprano solo), seduction, and the
joy of ultimate surrender to passion (Dulcissime, soprano solo).
Following the exultant
Blanziflor et Helena hymn, his repetition of the Fortune chorus reminds us that all human
happiness is transitory.
Throughout Carmina Burana, Orff's vocal tessitura is abnormally high. We notice this
characteristic more in the melismatic solo numbers, particularly those for soprano and tenor. But
the soloists never obscure the prominent role of the chorus, which is central to the work's
narrative, sensual, and musical power.
The score calls for a large orchestra: triple woodwind, four horns, three trumpets, three
trombones, tuba, timpani, a huge percussion battery requiring five players [xylophone, castanets,
ratchet, sigh-bells, triangle, crotales, cymbals, tam tam, chimes, tambourine, bass drum, three
glockenspiels, two suspended cymbals, two side drums, and a second set of timpani]; two pianos,
celesta, and strings.
— Laurie Shulman © 2014
SCANDAL IN THE MONASTERY
Music-lovers who enjoy Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana may know that the poetry Orff set
is a combination of medieval German and corrupt Latin, with a little old French thrown in for
good measure. They are probably aware that the texts are primarily secular, and that they
address a broad range of subject matter: youth, love (including courtship and seduction), life and
its pleasures (including drinking), and death (from the macabre perspective of a roasting swan,
turning on the grill). They may not realize, however, that the original manuscript was found in a
monastery. It reveals a surprisingly worldly aspect to the entertainment and intellectual pursuits
of a devout Roman Catholic society.
The texts for Carmina Burana were discovered in a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria in
the 19th century. The manuscript contains poetry in several languages ranging from the 11th to
13th centuries. Topics range from love poetry, satirical verse, and drinking songs to liturgical
dramas, moral lessons, and praise of Alexander the Great. While our perspective on music in the
middle ages may be limited to the most ancient forms of chant and organum, the art of poetry
also flourished in many countries. Sagas such as England’s Beowulf, France’s Chanson de
Roland, and the Spanish epic of the Cid date from the middle ages; so do Abélard’s chronicle of
his love for Héloise, and the courtly love poetry of Guillaume de Machaut, who was a gifted
composer as well as a poet.
Even so, the publication of the Carmina Burana poetry in 1847 startled literary scholars
and church figures because of its racy, even erotic content, mingled with Biblical paraphrases.
Johann Andreas Schmeller, a Munich librarian, first made the collection available. Ninety years
later, the German composer Carl Orff immortalized it in a blazing cantata he also called Carmina
Burana.
--L.S. ©2014