Carl Orff: Carmina Burana – Ylva Stenberg, Brett Sprague, Olle Persson – Brunnsbo Musikklasser, Gothenburg Symphony Choir – Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Santtu-Matias Rouvali (HD 1080p)

Under the baton of the talented Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, the soloists Ylva Stenberg (soprano), Brett Sprague (tenor), and Olle Persson (baritone), the choirs Brunnsbo Musikklasser and Gothenburg Symphony Choir, and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra perform Carl Orff 's Carmina Burana. Recorded at Gothenburg Concert Hall, on April 13, 2019.

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Already 38 when he began composing Carmina Burana – Songs from Benediktbeuern – Orff was nearly 42 when it finally was produced. Despite the co-title "Secular Songs", he designed the work as a theater piece, a "scenic cantata" to be danced as well as sung and played. In addition to soprano, tenor, and baritone soloists, large, small, and boys' choruses, Carmina Burana is scored for triple winds and brass, five timpani, percussion for six players, celesta, two pianos, and strings. Bertil Wetzelsberger conducted the premiere on June 8, 1937, at Frankfurt am Main.

The texts were written mostly by goliards, itinerant scholars, and lapsed clerics during the Middle Ages – medieval hippies, as it were, with skinheads mixed in. Preserved in a thirteenth century manuscript, these were discovered at a Bavarian monastery near the Passion Play town of Oberammergau in 1803 (Burana is a Latin neologism for Beuern, later Bayern: Bavaria in English). Written in low Latin, old German, and medieval French, most of the texts – variously bawdy, sensuous, comic, mock-tragic, but usually erotic – mock government and the church.

Carmina Burana is comprised of 26 sections in mostly major keys. A two-song choral Prolog, "Fortuna imperatrix mundi" (Fortune, Empress of the World), is about the ever-turning Wheel of Fortune that lifts man up only to cast him down. The next 22 sections are divided into three unequal parts.

First comes "Primo vere" (In springtime), nine frolicsome numbers that begin with small choir, then baritone solo, then full chorus. The concluding six are subtitled "Uf dem Anger" (On the lawn), commencing with a dance for orchestra; then a languorous waltz in for large and small choruses; another amatory adventure for both choruses to the accompaniment of sleigh bells and plucked violas; an ABA round dance that becomes Allegro molto midway, and finally a brief Allegro introduced by brass fanfares.

Next the music moves indoors – "In taberna" (In the tavern) – for a quartet of secular songs in praise of gluttony and drunkenness. A besotted goliard enumerates his amatory history, followed by a swan bewailing its mortality (in the person of a high tenor) while roasting on a spit. A tipsy abbot comes forward next, leading to a seditious melee for tipsy male choristers.

The concluding third is "Cour d'amours" (The court of love), whose ten parts tend to brevity; yet even when the music seems chaste, texts or subtexts are sexual, beginning with boys' chorus and a lovelorn soprano. After them, the solo baritone voices a courtier's despair. The soprano follows with "Stetit puella", about a pretty girl in a red tunic. The baritone sings a tale of planned seduction with choral punctuation, setting up the comedic encounter of male choristers and a maiden, a cappella. A lovestruck double chorus follows with piano/percussion accompaniment. The soprano's "In trutina" is torn between love and modesty, only to be overwhelmed by an erotic concatenation of everyone (excepting roasted solo tenor), pierced by the soprano's stratospheric "Dulcissime" (most sweet one, I give my all to you). The culmination of "Cour d'amours" is "Banziflor et Helena", another paean to Venus triumphant over virtue. Finally there's the repetition of "Fortuna, imperatrix mundi".

Source: Roger Dettmer (allmusic.com)



Carl Orff (1895-1982)

♪ Carmina Burana (1935-1936)

Ylva Stenberg, soprano
Brett Sprague, tenor
Olle Persson, baritone

Brunnsbo Musikklasser
Gothenburg Symphony Choir

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Santtu-Matias Rouvali

Gothenburg Concert Hall, April 13, 2019

(HD 1080p)

Carmina Burana is structured into five major sections, containing 25 movements total

Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi

1. O Fortuna
2. Fortune plango vulnera

I. Primo vere

3. Veris leta facies
4. Omnia sol temperat
5. Ecce gratum

Uf dem Anger

6. Tanz
7. Floret silva nobilis 
8. Chramer, gip die varwe mir
9. Reie
10. Were diu werlt alle min

II. In Taberna

11. Estuans interius
12. Olim lacus colueram
13. Ego sum abbas
14. In taberna quando sumus

III. Cour d'amours

15. Amor volat undique
16. Dies, nox et omnia
17. Stetit puella
18. Circa mea pectora
19. Si puer cum puellula
20. Veni, veni, venias
21. In truitina
22. Tempus est iocundum
23. Dulcissime

Blanziflor et Helena

24. Ave formosissima

Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi

25. O Fortuna

More photos


See also

Carl Orff: Carmina Burana – Martine Reyners, Philip Defrancq, Joris Derder – Royal Chorale Caecilia Antwerp, Royal Gente Oratorio Society, Beauvarletkoor Koksijde, Children's Music Wilrijk – Kamerorkest La Passione, Paul Dinneweth (HD 1080p)

Santtu-Matias Rouvali – All the posts

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra – All the posts