#carmina burana
In Trutina
Written by an anonymous 13th century poet, composed by Carl Orff as part of his song cycle Carmina Burana
I mentioned the other day that I think this is the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard but I didn’t share the audio. Here is is, all 1:56 minutes of it.
Lyrics
In trutina mentis dubia
fluctuant contraria
lascivus amor et pudicitia.
Sed eligo quod video,
collum iugo prebeo:
ad iugum tamen suave transeo.
Trans.
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.
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!
Catch the last National Philharmonic Chorale performance of the season this Saturday and Sunday at Strathmore! We’re performing Carl Orff’s rousing Carmina Burana as well the Washington, DC premiere of Witold Lutoslawksi’s Trois Poèmes d'Henri Michaux.
In 1962 Lutoslawski was commissioned by Slavko Zlatić, director of the Zagreb Radio Choir, to compose a musical presentation of Trois Poèmes d'Henri Michaux, an eclectic Belgian-born poet famous for his exploration of the darker sides of human emotion and conflict. The three-part work follows the principles of a classical tragedy. Choral parts range from entrances containing every note of the chromatic scale to approximated speaking, whispering, and shouting.
The first poem, “Pensées,” a skeptical reflection on human thinking, is followed by “Le grand combat,” presenting a bloody fight of two people and constituting the climactic act of the struggle. The third poem, “Repos dans le malheur,” brings melancholy, resignation, and relief. The work premiered in 1963 conducted by both Zlatić, leading the orchestra, and Lutoslawski, leading the 40-voice chorus.
Orff’sCarmina Burana confronts issues similar to the issues we face today: love, sex, drinking, gambling, fate, and fortune. Because of their intended use as a means of entertainment by and for the monks, the text was written in vernacular Latin and medieval French and German so as to be easily understood and accessible. Carl Orff selected 24 of the poems and arranged them by thematic content: Fortuna,Imperatrix Mundi (Fortune, Empress of the World), Primo vere(Springtime),In taberna (In the tavern), and Cours d’amour (The Court of Love).
The dark side of the bawdy and free-wheeling Carmina Burana, in its devil-may-care treatment of social interactions and mores, became Orff’s catapult to international fame as a composer, but it also made Orff’s name in Nazi cultural circles. After some initial official discomfort about the work’s frank sexual innuendos, Orff’s cantata was elevated to the status of a signature piece in Nazi circles, where it was treated as an emblem of Third Reich “youth culture.” The Nazi newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, once pointed to Orff’s cantata as “the kind of clear, stormy, and yet always disciplined music that our time requires.”
TheCarmina Burana is a fantastic introductory piece for anyone just getting their feet wet with classical music (plus it is one of the most well-known works in music). Here are some examples of the Carmina Burana in pop culture:
Carl Orff - Carmina Burana: Cantiones profanæ cantoribus et choris cantandæ comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis (1935-6), performed by UC Davis, 2007.
