70 years ago yesterday, on June 8, 1937 in Frankfurt, Germany, the world premiere occured of a musical work that launched, if not a thousand movie soundtracks, at least that from John Boorman's Excalibur. That opus is Carl Orff's greatest hit, Carmina Burana. The full title reads, with translation:
Carmina Burana: Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis
"Songs of Beuern: Secular songs for singers and chorus with accompaniment by instruments and magic pictures"
'Beuern' refers to the Benediktbeuern cloister, a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria where the manuscript somehow survived all those hundreds of years, especially given how very secular some of the songs were. More below the flip....
When anyone mentions the title Carmina Burana, it's really only one portion of a few minutes that is famous. This is the opening chorus, "O fortuna", where pounding piano, percussion singers and everything else get in your face musically from the start (sound sample available here or here). Because of the block-like and loud nature of this section, it has found cinematic use to underscore battle scenes, charges and such. Apparently it even forms part of the theme music of one right-wingnut's radio show (i.e. the one on Faux who isn't Colmes). Some apparently think that this music is for "smiting the heathen" and such.
Yet the text in "O Fortuna" is about no such thing at all. It's more about what Rowan and Martin called in a different context the "Fickle Finger of Fate":
"O Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi" ("O Fortune, Empress of the World")
"O Fortuna, / velut Luna / statu variabilis,
semper crescis / aut decrescis; / vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat / et tunc curat / ludo mentis aciem;
egestatem, / potestatem, / dissolvit ut glaciem.
Sors immanis / et inanis, rota tu volubilis,
status malus, / vana salus / semper dissolubilis;
obumbrata / et velata / mihi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum / dorsum nudum / fero tui sceleris.
Sors salutis / et virtutis / mihi nunc contraria;
est affectus / et defectus / semper in angaria.
hac in hora / sine mora / cordae pulsum tangite!
quod per sortem / sternit fortem, / mecum omnes plangite!
"O Fortune / like the moon / of varying state,
always waxing / or waning; / loathsome life
now obdurate / then coddling / with its whim;
poverty, / power, / it melts like ice.
Luck immense / and inane, / your whirling wheel turns,
bad states / good health / you ever dissolve;
shadowed / veiled / you work against me;
now at the game / my back is bare / after your villainy.
Salutary fate / and virtue / are now against me,
they affect me / wreck me / keep me their slave.
At this hour / without delay / strum the strings!
For through luck / the brave fall, / all weep with me!
This leads directly into the second part of the opening number:
"Fortunae plango vulnera / stillantibus ocellis,
quod sua mihi munera / subtrahit rebellis.
verum est, quod legitur / fronte capillata,
sed plerumque sequitur / Occasio calvata.
In Fortunae solio / sederam elatus,
prosperitatis vario / flore coronatus;
quicquid enim florui / felix et beatus
nunc a summo corrui / gloria privatus.
Fortunae rota volvitur; / descendo minoratus;
alter in altum tollitur; / nimis exaltatus
rex sedet in vertice / caveat ruinam!
nam sub axe legimus / HECUBAM REGINAM."
I wail at Fortune's wounds / with teary eyes,
because her gifts on a whim / she has taken from me.
'Tis true what you read / of those with full pate,
too often what follows / the head goes bald.
On Fortune's throne / I sat elated,
so very prosperous / crowned in flowers,
I flourished then / happy and blessed,
now am totally fallen / with glory lost.
The wheel of Fortune turns / I sink, debased;
another rises to the heights / too exalted,
a king sits vertiginously / Beware of ruin!
Under the axle it reads, / 'HECUBA IS QUEEN'.
Greek mythology reminder: Hecuba, former queen of Troy, after becoming a slave to Odysseus, so snarled at him that the gods turned her into a dog, which allowed her to escape captivity. (No word on how that all turned out.)
The irony is that, in spite of the opening number, much of Orff's cantata is actually quite restrained and not all that bombastic. The orchestra is huge for this work, to be sure, and when he pumps up the volume, he doesn't hold back. But he doesn't use all the players all the time.
Since this is SNLC, if there is a loser in all this, it's the tenor. He only gets one solo number in the whole 60 minutes of it. To add insult to injury, his song is from the POV of a roasted swan:
Tenor:
Olim lacus colueram,
olim pulcher exstiteram,
dum cygnus ego fueram.
Chorus
Miser, miser!
modo niger
et ustus fortiter!
Tenor:
Girat, regirat garcifer;
me rogus urit fortiter;
propinat me nunc dapifer.
Chorus:
Miser, miser!.... (as before)
Tenor:
Nunc in scutella iaceo,
et volitare nequeo;
dentes frendentes video.
Chorus:
Miser, miser!.... (as before)
Tenor:
Once I lived on the lakes
Once I was beautiful
When I was a swan.
Chorus:
Woe, woe!
Now black
And well roasted!
Tenor:
The cook turns me back and forth
The fire roasts me through;
The waiter readies to serve me.
Chorus (repeat above)
Tenor:
Now on the dish I lie
And I no longer fly
The champing teeth, I espy.
Chorus (repeat above)
There's actually quite a bit of metaphysics involved in the fact that the dead swan can see, somehow, what is about to happen to what remains of his carcass (something about vitalism or such?), but that's too much to get into here. This also encapsulates, perhaps subliminally, in poetic form, why vegetarians are vegetarians.
The one time I've heard Carmina Burana live at the Symphony, the tenor indulged in some stagecraft. He was off-stage for most of the performance, and strolled in from an auditorium side door just before his section. Then he jumped and sat at the edge of the stage. He sang his number, but as the narrative approached the moment of food consumption, he put on a 'deer-in-the-headlights' look, crossed himself, jumped off stage and ran out of the hall. (He did come back at the end for his solo bow.)
There's also one bit of historical uniqueness about Carmina Burana in classical-music-world: it is the only well-known work of classical music to have emerged from the Third Reich. Of course, part of the reason is that so many noted composers left Germany then (e.g. Berthold Goldschmidt, Paul Hindemith, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Arnold Schoenberg, Franz Waxman, Kurt Weill).
So the ultimate message of "O Fortuna": it's all luck. Or in more contemporary parlance:
"What goes around comes around" (e-groan here)
"That's life / That's what people say
You're ridin' high in April / Shot down in May"
Remember how the Dems got lucky last year at election time? Complacency is not to be indulged in, as if one needed reminding. Shooting each other up in pie-fights doesn't help either, but I digress, as usual.
OK, it's Saturday night, you know the ritual, so proceed......