Carmina Burana means, in Latin, songs of Beuern. It is the name of a medieval manuscript found at the Bavarian monastery of Benediktbeuern, containing poems written by clerics and students between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. In 1936, Carl Orff chose some two dozen of these texts and composed from them a scenic cantata about fortune, spring, the tavern and love. It was first performed in Frankfurt in 1937. Its opening chorus, O Fortuna, is now one of the most recognisable pieces in all classical music.
The Benediktbeuern manuscript was discovered in 1803, when the monastery was secularised. It gathers more than two hundred poems written mostly in Latin, with passages in Middle High German and Old French. Their authors were wandering clerics and students, the so-called goliards, who sang of wine, love and chance, and mocked the customs of their time.
The collection was published in 1847 under the title Carmina Burana, given to it by the philologist Johann Andreas Schmeller. Orff came upon these texts in 1934 and was struck by their direct force. With the help of the young Latinist Michel Hofmann he selected and ordered the poems that form the work.
The cantata opens and closes with the same chorus, O Fortuna, an invocation of the luck that governs human life. This circular form imitates the medieval wheel of fortune: what rises must fall; whoever reigns today is toppled tomorrow. Between these two pillars unfold three parts.
The first, Primo vere, celebrates spring and dancing on the green. The second, In taberna, is the world of drinkers and gamblers, with its rough humour. The third, Cour d'amours, speaks of desire and love, from shyness to surrender. There is no plot with characters: it is a sequence of tableaux on the human condition.
Orff renounced traditional symphonic development in favour of repetition, rhythm and unadorned melody. The orchestra is large, with abundant percussion and two pianos, but it is used with almost theatrical precision. The chorus carries the main weight, alongside a children's choir and three soloists: soprano, tenor and baritone.
There are moments of pure lyricism, such as In trutina, and others of extreme irony, such as the song of the swan roasting in the tavern, written in a punishingly high register for the tenor. That mixture of primal force and refinement explains why the work succeeds equally well in the concert hall and in the theatre.
O Fortuna appears in films and advertising, but it is usually heard out of context. The complete cantata lasts about an hour and reveals a far richer arc: the energy of the opening turns into dance, satire and tenderness before returning to its starting point.
Orff conceived it as a staged spectacle, with movement and images. That is why Carmina Burana has inspired so many choreographers, and seeing it danced is one of the most faithful ways of approaching the composer's original idea.
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