Third Concert of the 38th Season

Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi
1. O Fortuna
2. Fortuna plango vulnera

Part I
Primo Vere
3. Veris leta facies
4. Omnia sol temperat
5. Ecce gratum

Uf Dem Anger
6. Tanz
7. Floret Silva
8. Chramer, gip die varwe mir
9. Reie
10. Were diu werit alle min

Part II
In Taberna
11. Estuans interius
12. Olim lacus colueram
13. Ego sum abbas
14. In taberna quando sumus

Part III
Cour d'Amour
15. Amor volat undique
16. Dies, nox et omnia
17. Stetit puella
18. Circa mea pectora
19. Si puer cum puellula
20. Veni, veni, venias
21. In trutina
22. Tempus est iocundum
23. Dulcissime

Blanziflor et Helena
24. Ave formosissima

Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
25. O Fortuna

Carl Orff was a composer, conductor, and music educator. He was born on July 10, 1895, in Munich, Germany, and is still living. He spent most of his life in Munich. As a child he studied piano, organ, and cello. Five collections of songs were published when he was sixteen. Orff's interests were varied; although he loved music, he was also interested in literature, science, and languages, including Latin and Greek. When he was twenty, he served as composer for the Munich Chamber Players, and at twenty-two he was composer for the National Theater at Mannheim and the Court Theater in Darmstadt. When he was twenty-six, Orff became interested in medieval, renaissance, and early baroque music. In 1924 Orff and Dorothee Gunther established the Gunther School, which combined music, dance, and gymnastics.

As a child, Orff disliked musical exercises. From 1930 to 1933, while he was conducting the Munich Bach Society, Orff composed a graded series of music for use in the elementary schools (Schulwerk -- Music for Children). the music progresses from clapping and speaking to singing simple songs accompanied by bright, appealing, yet simple instruments to complex compositions for advanced students. In 1950-1954, Orff revised this collection. The Orff Method has profoundly influenced modern music education both in Europe and in the United States. Orff's Schulwerk has been translated into English and adapted for use in American schools.

Orff was essentially self-taught. He studied music for one year at a conservatory and later studied privately with Heinrich Kaminski, who interested him in early music. Orff's music reveals his own interests: colorful orchestration, melodic and rhythmic influences of early music, settings of ancient texts, and love of myth, fairy tale, and legend. His lack of extensive formal training, his experience in the theater, and his work with dance music have produced a simple, clear, and dramatically effective style which can easily be appreciated and which does not demand sophisticated, cerebral listening.

Carmina Burana is probably Carl Orff's most popular composition. It is a dramatic cantata for soloists, large chorus, small chorus, children's chorus, and orchestra, including two pianos, celesta, five tympani, sleigh bells, triangle, ratchet, crash and suspended cymbals, gong, glockenspiel, xylophone, chimes, tambourine, antique cymbals, and castanets. The composition was intended to be staged, with costumes, scenery, pantomime, and dancing.

The texts were taken from a collection of medieval poems compiled in southern Germany sometime after 1250. These lyrics comprise an anthology of more than two hundred compositions which was probably copied by an aristocratic clergyman who enjoyed them. The poems were copied into the manuscript in four groups: (1) moral and satirical poems protesting an lamenting the lowering of moral standards; (2) love songs -- both chaste and lusty; (3) drinking and gambling songs; and (4) sacred plays. Most of the poems are anonymous, but we do know the names of a few poets since later manuscripts, which do indicate the names of authors, contain some of the same poems. yet most of the authors remain anonymous. Not all of the songs are by goliards, the wandering student-poets of the late middle ages. Most of the poems date from the late eleventh or twelfth centuries, and most of the poetry originated in France, even though the texts were collected and later copied in southern Germany. Most of the poems are in Latin, but some are in old French and medieval German.

Carl Orff selected various texs from the first three sections of this collection: the protest songs, love songs, and drinking-gambling songs. These poems he then grouped into three section: "In the Spring" describing the delights of nature and love, "In the Tavern" describing the pleasures and punishments of sensuality, and "The Court of Love" describing various types of love.

Orchestra Personnel

Manchester College Chorale

Manchester College A Cappella Choir

Manchester Church of the Brethren
Melodia Choir