Carmina Burana is a setting of secular medieval Latin, French, and Middle High German poems from a manuscript originally preserved in the Bavarian Abbey of Benediktbeuren.
Compositional Technique
The music of Carmina Burana is described as primitive and barbarous, using insistent rhythms, ostinato repetitions, and avoiding chromatic or atonal musical idioms.
Composer Biography
Carl Orff, the composer of Carmina Burana, established the Güntherschule in Munich in 1924, an influential school for gymnastics, music, and dance.
Performer Biography
Marin Alsop, the principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, won the Royal Philharmonic Society Conductor of the Year award in 2002 and was named The Gramophone magazine's Artist of the Year in 2003.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Carmina Burana marked a new beginning for Orff as a composer, leading him to explore the characteristic form of Gesamtkunstwerk, drawing on diverse sources from ancient Greece to medieval Europe.
Cultural Impact
Carmina Burana has become a 'pop classic' and has been used as a backdrop for numerous international television adverts and films like Excalibur and Natural Born Killers.
Composition History
Orff's work as conductor of the Munich Bach Society from 1930 to 1935 led to the composition of his best-known work, Carmina Burana.
