Carmina Burana Piano Part

[Rut]

In1934, Orff encountered the 1847 edition of the Carmina Burana by Johann Andreas Schmeller, the original text dating mostly from the 11th or 12th century, including some from the 13th century. Michel Hofmann [de] was a young law student and an enthusiast of Latin and Greek; he assisted Orff in the selection and organization of 24 of these poems into a libretto mostly in secular Latin verse, with a small amount of Middle High German[1] and Old French. The selection covers a wide range of topics, as familiar in the 13th century as they are in the 21st century: the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of the return of spring and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling, and lust.

Carmina Burana is structured into five major sections, containing 25 movements in total, including one repeated movement (O Fortuna) and one purely instrumental one (Tanz). Orff indicates attacca markings between all the movements within each scene.

Much of the compositional structure is based on the idea of the turning Fortuna Wheel. The drawing of the wheel found on the first page of the Burana Codex includes four phrases around the outside of the wheel:

Within each scene, and sometimes within a single movement, the wheel of fortune turns, joy turning to bitterness, and hope turning to grief. "O Fortuna", the first poem in the Schmeller edition, completes this circle, forming a compositional frame for the work through being both the opening and closing movements.

Orff subscribed to a dramatic concept called "Theatrum Mundi" in which music, movement, and speech were inseparable. Babcock writes that "Orff's artistic formula limited the music in that every musical moment was to be connected with an action on stage. It is here that modern performances of Carmina Burana fall short of Orff's intentions." Orff subtitled Carmina Burana a "scenic cantata" in his intention to stage the work with dance, choreography, visual design and other stage action; the piece is now usually performed in concert halls as a cantata.

John Butler was the first of several choreographers to tackle the score. His Carmina Burana was premiered by the New York City Opera on September 24, 1959, featuring Carmen de Lavallade, Veronika Mlakar, Scott Douglass, and Glen Tetley.[2] It has since been performed by numerous companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet West, and Richmond Ballet and is now considered a canonical modern-ballet work.

A danced version of Carmina Burana was choreographed by Loyce Houlton for the Minnesota Dance Theatre in 1978.[3] In honour of Orff's 80th birthday, an acted and choreographed film version was filmed, directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle for the German broadcaster ZDF; Orff collaborated in its production.[4]

Orff's style demonstrates a desire for directness of speech and of access. Carmina Burana contains little or no development in the classical sense, and polyphony is also conspicuously absent. Carmina Burana avoids overt harmonic complexities, a fact which many musicians and critics have pointed out, such as Ann Powers of The New York Times.[9]

Orff was influenced melodically by late Renaissance and early Baroque models including William Byrd and Claudio Monteverdi.[10] It is a common misconception that Orff based the melodies of Carmina Burana on neumeatic melodies; while many of the lyrics in the Burana Codex are enhanced with neumes, almost none of these melodies had been deciphered at the time of Orff's composition, and none of them had served Orff as a melodic model.[11][12] His shimmering orchestration shows a deference to Stravinsky. In particular, Orff's music is very reminiscent of Stravinsky's earlier work Les noces (The Wedding).

Rhythm, for Orff as it was for Stravinsky, is often the primary musical element. Overall, Carmina Burana sounds rhythmically straightforward and simple, but the metre changes freely from one measure to the next. While the rhythmic arc in a section is taken as a whole, a measure of five may be followed by one of seven, to one of four, and so on, often with caesura marked between them.

Some of the solo arias pose bold challenges for singers: the only solo tenor aria, Olim lacus colueram, is often sung almost completely in falsetto to demonstrate the suffering of the character (in this case, a roasting swan).[citation needed] The baritone arias often demand high notes not commonly found in baritone repertoire, and parts of the baritone aria Dies nox et omnia are often sung in falsetto, a rare example in baritone repertoire. Also noted is the solo soprano aria Dulcissime, which demands extremely high notes. Orff intended this aria for a lyric soprano, not a coloratura, so that the musical tensions would be more obvious.

Several performances were repeated elsewhere in Germany. The Nazi regime was at first nervous about the erotic tone of some of the poems[16] but eventually embraced the piece. It became the most famous piece of music composed in Germany at the time.[17] The popularity of the work continued to rise after the war, and by the 1960s Carmina Burana was well established as part of the international classic repertoire. The piece was voted number 62 at the Classic 100 Ten Years On, in the top ten of the Classic 100 Voice, and is at number 144 of the 2020 Classic FM Hall of Fame.[18]

Alex Ross wrote that "the music itself commits no sins simply by being and remaining popular. That Carmina Burana has appeared in hundreds of films and television commercials is proof that it contains no diabolical message, indeed that it contains no message whatsoever."[19]

In 1956, Orff's disciple Wilhelm Killmayer created a reduced version for soloists, SATB mixed choir, children's choir, two pianos and six percussion (timpani + 5), and was authorized by Orff. The score has short solos for three tenors, baritone and two basses. This version is to allow smaller ensembles the opportunity to perform the piece.[20][21][22][23]

An arrangement for wind ensemble was prepared by Juan Vicente Mas Quiles [ca] (born 1921), who wanted both to give wind bands a chance to perform the work and to facilitate performances in cities that have a high-quality choral union and wind band, but lack a symphony orchestra. A performance of this arrangement was recorded by the North Texas Wind Symphony under Eugene Corporon. In writing this transcription, Mas Quiles maintained the original chorus, percussion, and piano parts.[25]

Carmina Burana became popular in Greece through its use at the beginning and end of Andreas Papandreou's election speeches from the 1974 legislative election to those of the 1993 legislative election.[26][27]

Displaying prodigious gifts at both the piano and the writing desk from an early age, Prokofiev (who set about composing an opera, "The Giant", at the age of nine) went on to write some of the most memorable melodies of any 20th-century Russian composer and left behind a collection of glittering concertos for his fellow pianist that showcase his gift for an unbridled lyricism laced with sardonic humour, of which the Third Concerto (completed in 1921) is most beloved example.

Such were Prokofiev's powers of memory he was able to reconstruct his Second Piano Concerto after his Moscow apartment had been looted when the composer fled his homeland, torn by political strife in 1917. Ironically a similar fate nearly befell this piece before its Chicago premiere. "An amusing thing with the Piano Concerto", wrote the inveterate diarist, "in my haste to finish the score in France, I did not trouble to write out the whole of the piano part in the finale, and when I packed my trunk I left all the sketches and working material for the Concerto with Mama, so that in case the trunk should go missing, at least they would remain intact." Once again, his elephantine memory saved the day, and he set about restoring the missing piano part before the concert.

Born into a family of military officers, the composer and devoted music educator Carl Orff recalled his discovery of a second-hand book catalogue that listed a collection of 13th-century manuscripts housed the monastery in the Bavarian town of Benediktbeuern. He promptly ordered the book and described its arrival as "a truly memorable day". So fired with enthusiasm for the bacchanalian poems and the accompanying images on the illuminated parchment, he wrote the resulting cantata, a Hedonistic hour-long work for vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra, in short order. Opening with a blazing fortissimo chorus setting of the poem "O Fortuna", the 1937 premiere of "Carmina Burana" was an unqualified success. "Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, printed, can be destroyed," the deliriously happy forty-one-year-old composer wrote to his publisher. "With "Carmina Burana" my collected works begin."

Recorded live in concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Narrm/Melbourne, on February 18, 2023 by ABC Classic. Presenter Mairi Nicolson. Producers Duncan Yardley and Jennifer Mills. Engineers Alex Stinson, Jack Montgomery-Parkes and Russell Thomson.

Carl Orff's 1937 composition Carmina Burana remains one of the most popular pieces of the classical music repertoire. Conductor Marin Alsop and Scott Simon discuss why so many artists have performed the piece.

(SOUNDBITE OF "CARMINA BURANA")LYNN NEARY, Host: Carmina Burana ranks up there with Beethoven's Fifth as a perennial favorite among concert-goers. But Carl Orff's famous piece has inspired countless others to produce their own versions, from the death metal group Therion to rappers Naz and Puff Daddy.(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "HATE ME NOW")PUFF DADDY: You can hate me now. But I won't stop now. Cause I can't stop now...NEARY: To the electronica artist SUB.(SOUNDBITE OF SUB RECORDING)NEARY: Conductor Marin Alsop has a new recording of Carmina Burana with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra on the Naxos label. Maestro Alsop takes over as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra next year. Earlier, she spoke with Scott Simon about this music.SCOTT SIMON, Host: Are there signatures from Carmina Burana that pop up in music over the years?MARIN ALSOP: This has to be probably the best-known 20th century piece, because it's been excerpted to sell everything from cars to aftershave. It's amazing what kind of associations people make for this piece. And actually, something I love to do is, you know, go around and play the opening - the 'O Fortuna - for people, and see what image it evokes. Because I think some people would see themselves, you know, driving in a certain brand of car, where others would see themselves, you know, putting on a certain type of lingerie. Who knows?SIMON: How would you describe this piece, Carmina Burana?ALSOP: It's a spectacle. It's very hard to categorize, and that was Orff's the intent, really. He wanted it to be a piece for all of the senses: to hear the voice, to hear the words, to experience this enormous orchestra, two pianos. And also, it was envisioned to have a dance element and a theater element as well.SIMON: Let's listen, if we could, to the opening section, 'O Fortuna.(SOUNDBITE OF "CARMINA BURANA")SIMON: How does this set the scene for what follows?ALSOP: Well, the enormity of this opening is so spectacular. Isn't it? And it's all about fate and fortune and how that impacts our lives, and also the hushed quality after this enormous opening. You know, suddenly, let me tell you a secret. Come closer.(SOUNDBITE OF "CARMINA BURANA")SIMON: The poems were discovered in an abbey near Munich in the early part of the 20th century. They were written by defrocked monk and minstrels, I'm told. Yeah.ALSOP: There's a little bit of a controversy about who actually wrote the body of these poems. It might have been some young people studying, about to go into the monastery, and I think from the text one could definitely get that sense, because so much of the text deals with the things that they are about to give up - you know, lust and drinking and all the really incredibly good things in life that they're about to give up. So I think that makes a lot of sense to me.SIMON: The work is divided into three parts, titled Spring, In the Tavern, and Love.ALSOP: Everything that's important in life is in this piece. There you go.SIMON: Some of the songs are a little colorful, even by today's standards.SIMON: Yes. I would say colorful, but of course, you know, when things are in Latin, the X-rated element almost gets elevated to a new level.SIMON: Yes.ALSOP: If I could put all of my swearing in Latin, I think that would definitely elevate my life.SIMON: There are paeans in this work to the tavern life.ALSOP: I think the word excess probably captures this piece. And I think that again draws people in, because there's something about talking about the excesses in life and the edges that is very appealing.SIMON: Let's listen if we could.(SOUNDBITE OF "CARMINA BURANA")SIMON: For those of us who have not been to the abbey, what is he saying, Maestro?ALSOP: Estuans interius - that translates into burning inside. So that just gives you a little burning inside with violent anger, you know, and this is all about - yeah, it's really hard to talk about on the radio, I must say.(SOUNDBITE OF "CARMINA BURANA")ALSOP: One of the spectacular dimensions to Carmina Burana is these amazing solos, you know, for the baritone, who's this hunky kind of masculine guy that you just heard. And then we have the tenor, who depicts the swan on a spit. You know, his dying days. And so the range for the tenor is enormously high in a falsetto voice.(SOUNDBITE OF "CARMINA BURANA")ALSOP: And then there's a gorgeous soprano who sings higher than one thinks possible. So again, it's about extremes and excess.SIMON: In other words, you don't want to say that she sings high, but the dogs in the audience are driven wild by that performance.ALSOP: It's sort of on the edge of dogland. It's almost leaping from a complete standstill to the top of a building. That's what she has to do, and it's spectacular.(SOUNDBITE OF "CARMINA BURANA")ALSOP: The words to Dulcissime - sweetest one I give myself to you totally.(SOUNDBITE OF "CARMINA BURANA")SIMON: Was Orff influenced by the works of any other composers?ALSOP: He's combining so many different stylistic elements. I mean we hear Stravinsky in it in these cross rhythms and when the two pianos get going. And at the same time we can hear really the monks in the monastery - elements of Gregorian chant. And so there's so many different varieties of music, musical styles that come into play, I think that's actually what gives it part of its appeal, because it's got something for everyone.SIMON: Let me ask you about a section called Veni, Veni.(SOUNDBITE OF "CARMINA BURANA")ALSOP: You hear in this piece the Stravinsky rhythms, and this idea of using two pianos is quite unusual and...SIMON: Now, they sound like they're trying to convince somebody of something.ALSOP: Yes. Well, I mean the literal translation, veni, veni, venias - come, come, oh come. So it's all about enticement, and so I think it definitely is this trying to lure people in.(SOUNDBITE OF "CARMINA BURANA")SIMON: Carl Orff went from being known as a music educator to the composer of Carmina Burana. And although he wrote lots of other music, as I understand it, he is forever identified pretty much as the composer of Carmina Burana. But was that uncomfortable for him? Did he say, you know, I did write a few other things too?ALSOP: Well, it's this desire of the public to identify and really categorize people. Ironically he wrote several other Carmina-like pieces. There are three of them in the trilogy, and the other two people don't know at all. So maybe that's going to be my - one of my goals to get people to know, to celebrate the three different Carminas.SIMON: Maestro, good to talk to you again.ALSOP: Great to be here. Thank you.NEARY: Maestro Marin Alsop, who takes over next year as conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, speaking with Scott Simon. This last song from Carmina Burana is a love song called In Triutina. For more on Carmina Burana, visit our Web site at npr.org.(SOUNDBITE OF "CARMINA BURANA")

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