#carl orff

I’m in the sort of mood where I am desperate to listen to emotive and bombastic music. When I was a teenager I filled this need with thrash metal and growling rock (because that was the only realm in which I had cool tastes) but these days I’m all about loud choral bombastic classical music. I want to talk about some of my favourites across a few posts

Carmina Burana, by Carl Orff

Ever wonder what life was like for medieval European monks? Wonder no more! In the 1800’s a large collection of vulgar (in the classical sense of non-religious) poetry written between the 11th and 13th centuries was unearthed in Bavaria. The collection, written in Latin and German and French, covered love and lust, merriment and despair, political mockery and the awareness of how insignificant a single human is in the face of the greater forces in the world.

In the 1930’s Orff set 24 of these songs to music, divided into three sections: springtime; in the tavern; the court of love

I saw this once live with a hundred-strong choir and it was intense.

Some highlights:

O Fortuna: the opening and closing song sung by the entire choir

O Fortune, like the moon you are changeable, ever waxing, ever waning Hateful life first oppresses and then soothes as fancy takes it; poverty and power it melts them like ice Fate – monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, you are malevolent! Well-being is vain and always fades to nothing, shadowed and veiled you plague me too; now through the game I bring my bare back to your villainy. Fate is against me in health and virtue, driven on and weighted down, always enslaved! So at this hour without delay pluck the vibrating strings; since Fate strikes down the strong man, everyone weep with me!

Estuans Interius: even edgier than O Fortuna, sung by a single male voice with supporting choir

Burning inside with violent anger, bitterly I speak my heart: Created from matter, of the ashes of the elements, I am like a leaf played with by the winds…….

In Trutina: sung by a female voice and genuinely the most beautiful song I know

In the wavering balance of my feelings Set against each other Lascivious love and modesty But I choose what I see And submit my neck to the yoke; I yield to the sweet yoke.

Tempus Est Iocundum: a thumping joyous song about being a randy teenage virgin looking for love, sung by the choir alternating between men and women/children

…In the winter man is patient, the breath of spring makes him lust. Oh! oh! oh! I am bursting out all over! I am burning all over with first love! New, new love is what I am dying of. My virginity makes me frisky, my simplicity holds me back. Oh! Oh! Oh!….

Dulcissme: short and sweet, a lone female voice trilling out the most melodious orgasm you’ve ever heard

Sweetest one! Ah! I give myself to you totally!