Carl Orff’s objective—to create complex music from the simplest possible elements—informs both his compositions and his pathbreaking work in music education. The Orff-Schulwerk, an innovative educational system integrating music and movement, is based on the same fundamental principles as Carmina Burana, the large-scale choral work that turned the German composer into an international celebrity.
Orff hit upon the subject of Carmina Burana almost by accident. As he later recollected:
“Fortuna” smiled upon me when she brought into my hands a second-hand book catalog from Würzburg, where I found a title that drew me in with an almost magical power:
Carmina Burana: Latin and German Songs and Poems from a 13th-Century Manuscript from Benediktbeuren, edited by J.A. Schmeller.
This manuscript had been kept in the Benediktbeuren Monastery until it was brought to the Royal Court Library in Munich, in the wake of the secularization of the Bavarian monasteries. It was given its name Carmina Burana (‟Songs from Benediktbeuren”) by its editor, the estimable archivist Johann Andreas Schmeller, who had first published it in 1847.
I received the volume on Maundy Thursday of 1934, a day that is still memorable to me. Upon turning to the first page I found the well-known image of “Fortune with her wheel,” and under it the lines O Fortuna velut luna statu variabilis... (“O Fortune, like the moon, everchanging...”)
Pictures and words seized hold of me. Although for the moment I was acquainted only along general lines with the contents of the collection of poems, a new work, a stage work with singing and dancing choruses, simply following the illustrations and texts, at once came into my mind. On the very same day I sketched out a partial draft of the opening “O Fortuna” chorus. After a sleepless night in which I nearly lost myself in the poems, another chorus was born, “Fortune plango vulnera,” and by Easter morning a third (“Ecce gratum”) had been set down on paper.
It wasn’t so easy to find one’s way around this codex, with its 250 songs and poems. Most of the poems were in late Latin, but a large number of them were in Middle High German, and some were even in a mixture of Latin texts with Old French refrains...I was fully aware that some of the poems in the collections contained neumes...but I had neither the desire nor the ability to decipher this ancient musical notation.* So I interpreted them rather casually. The things that moved me most of all were the sweeping rhythmic drive, the picturesqueness of the poetry, and (not least of all) the unusually concise Latin text.
Orff divided his work in three sections, devoted, respectively, to a celebration of spring, the joys of the tavern, and “The Court of Love.” The invocation of Fortune and her wheel, which had so impressed Orff, serves as a frame, opening and closing the cantata. This chorus sets the tone of the whole work with brief melodic motifs progressing in relentless ostinatos (unchanging rhythmic patterns). The first major section, “Primo vere” (“In the spring”) begins with a unison melody sung by the chorus that could almost come from the Middle Ages. Its tone continues in the ensuing first baritone aria. The next big chorus (“Ecce gratum”) evokes a folk-music style of more recent date with its clear major tonality. A purely instrumental dance movement then follows, with some changing meters in a definitely 20th-century spirit. In the chorus “Floret silva,” the words “meus amicus” (“my friend”) are given special emphasis by a motif borrowed from Bavarian or Austrian folk dances. This turn, a bold ascending leap of a major ninth, takes on an unmistakable erotic connotation here as the subject matter turns from a description of spring flowers to the blossoming of youthful love. The dance becomes more and more boisterous, ending Part I with some ecstatic high C’s (not often required of choral singers) at the thought of embracing, of all people, the Queen of England!
Part II, devoted to the joys of good food and copious drinks, begins with the “Wandering Scholar’s Confession” by an author known only as the Archpoet of Cologne. This is followed by the Lament of the Roasting Swan, introduced by a high-pitched and tortuously chromatic bassoon solo that is intended to portray the wailing of the unfortunate bird. The tenor solo sings this most unusual “swan song” in a truly murderous high register with some decidedly un-medieval modulations. Meanwhile, the orchestral accompaniment gives us what the late Michael Steinberg, dean of program annotators, used to call “musical gooseflesh—or swanflesh.” The baritone then continues with some mock-Gregorian chant in a satirical imitation of a church sermon. An universal paean to drinking, “In taberna quando sumus,” concludes this section.
Part III (“The Courts of Love”) picks up where Part I left off. The soprano soloist, singing for the first time, expresses an undisguised sexual desire that will linger for the rest of the piece until, in a breathtaking coloratura passage for unaccompanied soprano, the act is finally consummated. All that remains is a solemn celebration of love and beauty (“Ave formosissima”) before the return of Fortune and her wheel puts everything, once more, in a sobering perspective: our thoughts and our endeavors, our joys and our sorrows, are all transient and subject to the whims of this fickle goddess.
After completing the cantata, Orff told his publisher: “Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, printed, can be destroyed. With Carmina Burana, my collected works begin.” They continued with two companion pieces, Catulli Carmina (1943) and Trionfo di Afrodite (1951), which were eventually united as a theatrical triptych under the title Trionfi. Yet the companion pieces have never achieved the popularity of Carmina Burana. Also, while Orff clearly intended the work to be performed with sets and costumes (there have been many memorable performances stagings), the work is still most frequently heard in concert version. The music is so powerful that it certainly gets the message across even without the theatrical element.
* They were later deciphered by scholars; the original medieval Carmina Burana has now been widely performed and recorded.
~Notes by Peter Laki copyright 2024