(As some of you may know, I sing in about four different choirs in New Orleans. One of them will be doing Orff's Carmina Burana. Somehow, the administrative dynamo in charge of this chorus persuaded me to take charge of "singer education," which has nothing to do with vocal production or sight-reading skills -- neither one of which I could teach -- but with providing info on the pieces we're doing this year, including Beethoven's Ninth and Schoenberg's "Survivor from Warsaw" [on the SAME CONCERT! So there!]. I'm passing along my first effort as new head of Singer Education.) Carl Orff (1895-1982) wrote this most popular of his works in the Thirties. It premiered in 1937 in Frankfurt. Orff entertained within himself an antiquarian streak, a love of old manuscripts - not only for classical Greek and Latin texts, but for those of medieval Germany. In music, he pioneered with performances of Renaissance works and early operas, especially those of Claudio Monteverdi, who also favored classical themes. Most people could care less about this stuff. Orff's music, however, very powerfully puts it over. Orff later grouped Carmina Burana (The Songs of Beuern) with two other works under the title Trionfi: Catulli Carmina (The Songs of Catullus) and Trionfo di Afrodite (The Triumph of Aphrodite). The triptych doesn't really hang together, because the styles of the three "panels" don't really fit together. Catulli Carmina (the best setting of Catullus's poetry I know) is much more austere, and Trionfo di Afrodite is more dreamlike. The folk strain of Carmina Burana, which contributes so greatly to the work's appeal, fails to enter the other two parts. Nevertheless, Orff connected all three parts as "scenic cantatas" - that is, choral pieces meant to accompany staged dancing. Orff composed Carmina Burana originally for a workers' chorus. As a result, it fits amateur choirs like a good suit, although a really good choir can make an even better effect. As I've said, the tunes are simple and folk-like, although Orff, probably one of the twentieth century's genius melodists, wrote every one of them. The chorus only rarely has to negotiate counterpoint. These are songs in the sense that most people understand the term: a melody accompanied. The success of this work has gone far beyond normal concert venues. Ballet companies have taken it up with great success, its strong rhythms made for getting the body to move. Maestro Klauspeter Seibel [music director of the Louisiana Philharmonic, and a fantastic musician, one of the best conductors I've ever heard] once remarked, "Orff's music seems to bypass the brain entirely and to head directly for the feet." Parts of Carmina turn up in various commercials. Very successful film composers have ripped it off - or, more politely, appropriated it - for their own uses (listen to John Williams's score for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom sometime). For his texts, Orff went to a manuscript of medieval German poetry found in a Benedictine abbey in Beuern, which I believe is a region of Bavaria. The texts Orff chose have little to do with religion, however - rather wine, women, and food. In addition to a love for old manuscripts, Orff loved beautiful women (as he got older, his new wives got younger and younger). The texts were written by wandering scholars, known as the goliardi, essentially low-level clerics (or ex-clerics) who moved from place to place. The Church apparently could not provide livings for them all (just as universities today cannot hire every new Ph.D.), so the goliardi had to make out as best they could. As many of the poems show, they had little love for the church hierarchy, many of them writing bitingly satirical verses against local abbots and bishops. Since the texts are a hodge-podge, don't look too closely for artistic unity in Orff's piece. The work falls into several large sections. The first is a prelude that apostrophizes "Fortune, the Empress of the World," and the poet laments his bad luck. The second, "In Springtime," consists of two subgroups of love poems - the first evoking the pastoralism of classical Greece and Rome, the second, "On the Green," the German countryside. "In the Tavern" comes next. It extols the joys of overdrinking, over-eating, bull sessions, and bar life in general. "The Court of Love" - no big surprise - collects more love poetry. It differs from "Primo Vere" and "Uf dem Anger" in that love is no longer treated as a game. The emotions run much more deeply, not just sighing and yearning, but lust. It culminates in an apostrophe to two legendary lovers, Blanziflor and Helena. This leads swiftly to a brief recap of the prelude to Fortune. Although it derives musically from such Stravinsky works of the Twenties as Les Noces and Oedipus Rex particularly in its emphasis on percussion (Stravinsky's "orchestra of hammers") and ostinato (a persistent, usually rhythmic figure in the same instrument or set of instruments), Carmina Burana nevertheless represents something new in music - music pared down almost to the bone. Its dependence on repetition, rather than on classical symphonic development, to make its effect presages the minimalists of the Seventies and Eighties (although most of those later composers would probably disown Orff). Nevertheless, Orff's orchestra sings more colorfully than Stravinsky's and, unlike the weaker minimalists, Orff generally knows when to move on so that the listener doesn't get bored. The usual large choral-orchestral repertoire - for example, Beethoven's Ninth or Missa Solemnis - demands certain things of a choir: odd harmonic changes, bristling counterpoint. Orff doesn't ask his choir for these. His style here is so uncomplicated ("simple" implies simple-minded, and this is an extremely sophisticated work) that basic choral techniques, things that choral singers don't normally think about when they try to surmount the usual hurdles, become extremely important. The rhythm in particular stands out. Throughout Carmina Burana, one hears the heavy tread of dancers. If the rhythm is flabby and spongy, the work loses 90% of its effect. Orff's chorus creates rhythm - dances, if you like - through the words. Consonants and attacks have to be razor-sharp, otherwise the listener has little idea where one word ends and another begins. Think of consonants as the vocal equivalent of drumsticks and mallets, hard and soft. Consonants enunciated clearly and together are one key to unlocking the power of the Carmina. The second main component of the choral style is the choir's ability to contrast dynamic extremes (loud followed immediately by soft, and vice versa). The emotions of the work are extreme. Orff often follows a punch to the gut with a caress or puts the music on a long, slow simmer that suddenly erupts. He asks a choir to follow him, often to turn on a dime, if the music is not to lose its point. I can recommend several recordings of Carmina (and there has been a ton). My favorites include: * Lucia Popp (S), Gerhard Unger (T), Raymond Wolansky (Bar.), John Noble (Bar.); New Philharmonia Chorus (Chorus Master: Wilhelm Pitz), Wandsworth School Boys' Choir (Chorus Master: Russell Burgess); New Philharmonia Orchestra/Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos (cond.) EMI CDM 7 69060 2. For my money, the best chorus. * Judith Blegen (S), Kenneth Riegel (T), Peter Binder (Bar.); Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Boys' Choir (Chorus Master: Robert Page); Cleveland Orchestra/Michael Tilson Thomas (cond.) Sony 33172. A chorus just a hair less socko than Pitz's, but Judith Blegen will melt your heart. * Janice Harsanyi (S), Rudolf Petrak (T), Harve Presnell (Bar.); Philadelphia Chorus and Orchestra (Chorus Master: Robert Page)/Eugene Ormandy (cond.) Sony 87735. An extremely popular recording when it came out, its chief attraction remains the spectacular baritone soloist, Harve Presnell. * Gundula Janowitz (S), Gerhard Stolze (T), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Bar.); Deutsche Oper Orchestra and Chorus/Eugen Jochum (cond.) DG 447437. One of the few recordings endorsed by Orff. I find the chorus mushy and the reading way too smooth. So what does the composer know? * Sylvia Greenberg (S), James Bowman (counter-tenor), Stephen Roberts (Bar.); Berlin Radio Symphony Chorus, Berlin Cathedral Boys' Choir, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra/Riccardo Chailly (cond.) Decca E4117022. Technically, just about perfect. The sound is the best I've heard. Unusual, in that it replaces the tenor (in falsetto for the "roasted swan" sequence) with a counter-tenor. Chailly is simply one fine conductor. You may have trouble finding this recording in the US, but it should be available from www.amazon.uk.co Steve Schwartz