Orff: Carmina Burana

Carl Orff brings the Middle Ages into the modern era with Carmina Burana, one of the best-loved choral works of the 20th century, and an exuberant celebration of the power of music’s simplest yet most versatile building blocks: beautiful melody, and raw rhythm.

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When?

In 1936 Carl Orff composes his epic Carmina Burana, based on medieval poetry. The same year that:

• African-American athlete Jesse Owens wins the 100-metre dash at the Berlin Olympics, one of four gold medals he will take home from the Games.
• The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, takes to the air, broadcasting radio; the BBC launches the world’s first regular ‘high-definition’ television service.
• The Great Purge begins in Russia; over two years, many hundreds of thousands will die at Stalin’s behest.
• The Tasmanian Tiger becomes extinct, after a concerted campaign to reduce their numbers, supported by the Tasmanian Government.

Fast Facts

• Carl Orff believed passionately in the importance of taking music back to its roots, turning away from the lush harmonies of late Romanticism (such as Wagner and Richard Strauss) and the subtle colours of Debussy, in favour of bold, direct musical gestures. One of the key elements of his musical language was rhythm, which he understood to be intimately linked to movement and gesture. As a composer, he wrote mostly for the theatre, often inspired by the drama of the ancient world, especially Classical Greek tragedy and medieval mystery plays. As a music educator, he used rhythm and movement as the basis of a teaching method which fosters improvisation and creativity in young children; Orff’s ‘Schulwerk’ is still used by music teachers around the world.
• The title Carmina Burana means ‘Songs from Benediktbeuern’ and refers to a medieval collection of poetry written by travelling scholars and clerics. (Benediktbeuern is the name of the town in southern Germany in whose abbey the manuscript was found.) Some of the poems are in Latin, some are in medieval German or French, and some are in a mixture of languages.
• The themes of the poems range from the worldly to the downright earthy: the cruel randomness of Fate, the joys of Spring and the beauty of nature, and the pleasures (and perils!) of drinking, gluttony, gambling and lust. Orff uses elements from medieval music — flowing melodic lines in the style of Gregorian plainsong, and simple harmonies (sometimes just a single, long-held bass note, or ‘drone’) — to evoke the world of the medieval poets.
• Carmina Burana was originally written (in 1936) for choirs, soloists and large orchestra. Twenty years later, Orff authorised a smaller-scale version which uses two pianos and an extensive battery of percussion, instead of a full orchestra, thus accentuating the rhythmic energy of the music; it is this version which is recorded here.