LVSO | ''CARMINA BURANA''

 

C. Orff. "Carmina Burana"

 

This autumn Maestro Gintaras Rinkevičius and the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra under his direction have chosen an exceptional work - the magnificent stage cantata "Carmina Burana" for soloists, choir and orchestra by the German composer Carl Orff (1895-1982). The work, which soon after its premiere gained worldwide fame, was written for choral texts using 24 poems from a medieval manuscript with the Latin title Carmina Burana (Songs from Beuern). The literary work, discovered in a Benedictine monastery in the Bavarian Alps, contains a total of 254 poems and dramatic texts written by unknown wandering poets from the 11th to the 13th centuries, probably mostly theological students. The work satirizes the fickleness of success, the ephemeral nature of life, and pokes fun at the pleasures and dangers of the mundane joys of life.

 

Shortly after the work's highly successful premiere at the Frankfurt Opera in 1937, Orff said: "Everything I have written up to this day can be destroyed. With Carmina Burana, my selective works begin." "Carmina Burana has become one of the most famous choral works of all time, and its main theme "O Fortuna", which opens and closes the cantata, is one of the most frequently performed classical themes in the world.