Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana", performed by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of its chief conductor Cristian Măcelaru for its 75th anniversary concert on Oct. 29, 2022 at the Kölner Philharmonie. Soloists were Sarah Aristidou, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke and Markus Werba, the choral parts were sung by the WDR Rundfunkchor, the NDR Vokalensemble and the boys and girls of the Kölner Dommusik.

Carl Orff - Carmina Burana

Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
00:00:00 No. 1: O Fortuna
00:02:26 No. 2: O Fortune plango vulnera
I. Primo vere
00:05:13 No. 3: Veris leta facies
00:09:55 No.: 4: Omnia sol temperat
00:12:04 No. 5: Ecce gratum | I. Uf dem anger
00:14:53 No. 6: Dance
00:16:34 No. 7: Floret silva
00:19:58 No. 8: Chramer, gip die varwe mir
00:23:38 No. 9: Reie, Swaz hie gat umbe, Chume, chum, geselle min, Swaz hie gat umbe
00:28:43 No. 10: Were diu werlt alle min
II. In taberna
00:29:34 No. 11: Estuans interius
00:31:47 No. 12: Olim lacus colueram
00:35:03 No. 13: Ego sum abbas
00:36:34 No. 14: In taberna quando sumus
III. courses d'amours
00:39:43 No. 15: Amor volat undique
00:43:22 No. 16: Dies, nox et omnia
00:45:26 No. 17: Stetit puella
00:47:16 No. 18: Circa mea pectora
00:49:18 No. 19: Si puer cum puellula
00:50:09 No. 20: Veni, veni, venias
00:51:06 No. 21: In trutina
00:53:21 No. 22: Tempus et iocundum
00:55:42 No. 23: Dulcissime
III. blanziflor et helena
00:56:24 No. 24: Ave formosissima
Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
00:58:02 No. 25: O Fortuna

Sarah Aristidou, soprano
Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, tenor
Markus Werba, baritone
WDR Symphony Orchestra
WDR Radio Choir
NDR Vocal Ensemble
Boys and girls of the Cologne Cathedral Music
WDR Symphony Orchestra
Cristian Măcelaru, conductor


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Work Introduction:

If you want to experience all the riotous power, rhythmic drive and vibrant physicality of Orff's "Carmina Burana," you should be sitting in the middle of the orchestra
orchestra. Then you can feel firsthand the archaic violence of the half-cheering, half-despairing choral invocation of the capricious goddess of fortune Fortuna, sitting in the middle of the roughest binge, where a roasted swan sings its tortured melodies, experiences the mating stress of the young people in the village square, driven to excess by two pianos and drums, percussion, and the minne of the high couple.

All this was incredibly cleverly composed by Carl Orff in a new simplicity, influenced by folk music and current dance music, but not having much to do with the new music of the time, with Schoenberg or Stravinsky. Perhaps this was the reason why the Frankfurt premiere of the "Carmina Burana" on June 8, 1937, although criticized by some papers because of its music and permissiveness of content, but in the Nazi state the work
triumphant march through the concert halls - and even after the war hardly lost its popularity after the war. After 1945, the composer claimed that with the "Carmina Burana" he wanted to compose a work that was "not faithful to the line" - for which the musical modernities and the emphasis on an uncertain fate (instead of ideological certainty) would speak for this. On the other hand, the society that Orff depicts in his "secular songs" is down-to-earth and popular - much more so than in his late tragedies than in his late tragedies based on ancient Greek models.

Orff had discovered his source in an antiquarian bookstore catalog: the first complete edition of songs ("Carmina") and dramas, mostly written in Middle Latin, from the former library of the Benediktbeuern monastery (to which the adjective "Burana" refers). The question of the genre of the "Carmina Burana" remains interesting; today they are mostly performed in concert, but they have also been seen on stage or in film (by opera director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle). In any case, recently discovered sketches by Orff prove that he imagined the "magical images" in the subtitle as projections - perhaps a suggestion to reinterpret the "Carmina Burana" once with modern video technology.
(Michael Struck-Schloen)