SUPER AUDIO CD Carl Orff CARMINA BURANA live recording Laura Claycomb soprano Barry Banks tenor London Symphony Chorus Christopher Maltman baritone London Symphony Orchestra CHSA 5067 Richard Hickox CHSA 5067 Booklet Cover.indd 1 21/8/08 16:40:45 © Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library Carl Orff, 1936 CHSA 5067 Booklet.indd 2 21/8/08 16:41:28 Carl Orff (1895 –1982) live recording Carmina burana (1936) Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi 5:16 1 1 O Fortuna. Pesante – [ ] – 2:36 2 2 Fortune plango vulnera. [ ] – Più mosso 2:40 I. Primo vere 23:01 3 3 Veris leta facies. [ ] – Poco più lento, tranquillo – A tempo, come prima – 3:54 4 4 Omnia Sol temperat. [ ] – Sempre molto rubato – 2 :11 5 5 Ecce gratum. Con ampiezza – Quasi allegretto – Allegro molto – Ancora più presto di prima – Presto 2:43 Uf dem anger 6 6 Tanz. Pesante – Allegro – Un poco più lento – Più mosso – 1:44 7 7 Floret silva. [ ] – Poco più mosso – [ ] – Poco più mosso – 3:18 8 8 Chramer, gip die varwe mir. Quasi andante – 3:23 9 9 Reie. Andante poco esitante – Più andante – Swaz hie gat umbe. Allegro molto – Chume, chum, geselle min. [ ] – Swaz hie gat umbe. A tempo come prima – 4:51 10 10 Were diu werlt alle min. Allegro molto 0:53 3 CHSA 5067 Booklet.indd 3 21/8/08 16:41:28 II. In Taberna 10:38 11 11 Estuans interius. Allegro molto – 2:28 12 12 Olim lacus colueram. [ ] – 3:35 13 13 Ego sum abbas. [ ] – 1:29 14 14 In taberna quando sumus. [ ] 3:05 III. Cour d’amours 18:31 15 15 Amor volat undique. Largo – Rubato flessibile – [ ] – A tempo come prima – 3:16 16 16 Dies, nox et omnia. [ ] – 2:07 17 17 Stetit puella. [ ] – 1:49 18 18 Circa mea pectora. [ ] – Più mosso – Ancora più mosso – Sempre accelerando – Come prima – Più mosso – Ancora più mosso – Sempre accelerando – Molto appassionato – Più mosso – Ancora più mosso – Sempre accelerando – 2:04 19 19 Si puer cum puellula. Allegro buffo – Allegro molto – 0:58 20 20 Veni, veni, venias. Allegro – 1:01 21 21 In trutina. [ ] – 2:17 4 CHSA 5067 Booklet.indd 4 21/8/08 16:41:28 22 22 Tempus est iocundum. Allegro molto – Più lento – Allegro molto – Come prima – Allegro molto – Ancora più lento di prima – 2:22 23 23 Dulcissime. [ ] – 0:43 Blanziflor et Helena 24 24 Ave formosissima. [ ] – 1:50 Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi 3 :11 25 25 O Fortuna. Pesante – [ ] 3 :11 TT 60:37 Laura Claycomb soprano Barry Banks tenor Christopher Maltman baritone Tiffin Boys’ Choir Simon Toyne chorus master London Symphony Chorus Joseph Cullen chorus director London Symphony Orchestra Sarah Nemtanu guest leader Richard Hickox 5 CHSA 5067 Booklet.indd 5 21/8/08 16:41:28 London Symphony Chorus soprano alto Suleen Syn Vicky Collis*§ Sarah Baird§ Claire Trocmé Emma Craven§ Sarah Biggs§ Judith Youdell Eileen Fox Elizabeth Boyden Mimi Zadeh§ Kate Gardner§ Sarah Castleton§ Fulva Giust Glynis Charrot§ tenor Jane Goddard Rosie Chute David Aldred Deborah Grant Yvonne Cohen Paul Allatt Joanna Gueritz§ Genevieve Cope§ Robin Anderson§ Carolin Harvey Janette Daines§ Conway Boezak Lucy Heyman§ Kinga Daniel Andrew Fuller§ Katrina Hyde Zoe Davis§ David Leonard Sarah Illingworth Maggie Donnelly§ John Marks§ Rachel Kingston Diane Dwyer Simon Marsh§ Cinde Lee Linda Evans§ Alastair Mathews Rachael Leggett§ Lydia Frankenburg Malcolm Nightingale Clare Lorimer Amanda Freshwater Panos Ntourntoufis§ Jane Morley Christina Gibbs§ Stuart Packford Jeannie Morrison§ Vanessa Knapp Eric Phillips Dorothy Nesbit§ Sue Lee§ Harold Raitt§ Emily Norton Catherine Lenson§ Graham Steele Maggie Owen Belinda Liao§ Richard Street Ann Pfeiffer Suzanne Louvell Anthony Stutchbury Sue Pollard§ Anne Loveluck§ Owen Toller§ Mikiko Ridd Barbara Marchbank Claudio Tonini§ Stefanie Rumpelt§ Alex O’Shea James Warbis*§ Melissa Scott Lucy Reay§ Robert Ward* Amanda Thomas Clare Rowe Julia Warner Lis Smith§ Mary Withall§ Jane Steele 6 CHSA 5067 Booklet.indd 6 21/8/08 16:41:28 bass Robin Hall David Peirson Joseph Bahoshy Bryan Hammersley Alan Rochford§ Andy Chan Owen Hanmer*§ Tim Sanderson Hubert Chan§ Anthony Howick*§ Nicholas Seager§ Stephen Chevis§ Julian Jarvis John Wareing Stewart Easton Alex Kidney§ Nicholas Weekes§ Alastair Forbes§ Gregor Kowalski§ Anthony Wilder Robert French Georges Leaver* Robert Garbolinski*§ Keith Montgomery§ *member of Council John Graham§ Bill Pargeter§ §semi-chorus Laurence Mullenders Laura Claycomb 7 CHSA 5067 Booklet.indd 7 21/8/08 16:41:30 Carl Orff: Carmina burana Everything I have written to date, and of Herbert von Karajan, then enjoying his which you have (unfortunately) printed, meteoric rise to fame. The interpretation can be destroyed. With Carmina burana, by Karajan in particular was singled out by my collected works begin! critics for successfully balancing the work’s So Carl Orff (1895 −1982) is reputed to characteristic energy with moments of have declared to his publisher at around haunting tenderness, an achievement that the time of the first performance ofCarmina won him Orff’s personal approval. The first burana at the Städtische Bühnen in Frankfurt performance of the work outside Germany am Main on 8 June 1937, when the work took place at Teatro alla Scala, Milan in was conducted by Bertil Wetzelsberger October 1942, and in the United States it in a staged production directed by Oscar came to be championed by conductors of Wälterlin from designs by Ludwig Sievert. the stature of Leopold Stokowski and Fritz Conceiving this work, as he conceived almost Reiner. all his major works, as a pageant was the The premiere in Frankfurt in 1937 formed logical culmination of the strong interest part of what proved to be the final annual in such theatrical presentations which festival of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Orff had fostered since his first venture Musikverein (General German Music Society), of this kind, a successful staged version an organisation founded by Franz Liszt in of the St Luke Passion (once attributed to the mid-nineteenth century. In 1936 the J.S. Bach) at Munich in 1932. Carmina burana Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels proved to be an instant success, with Hans had forced the president of the politically Rosbaud mounting a performance during controlled Reichsmusikkammer (Reich his tenure as music director of Westphalian Chamber of Music), Peter Raabe, to absorb Münster in the 1939/40 season, and Karl the Society fully into the RMK’s operations, Böhm introducing it to Dresden audiences evidently so that it could be easily abolished in October 1940; both concert and in the following year. Raabe was a relatively staged performances followed in Berlin liberal musician with modernist leanings, who during 1941 under the musical direction favoured the kind of mild experimentation 8 CHSA 5067 Booklet.indd 8 21/8/08 16:41:30 typified by Orff’s work, and it was partly the Bavarian Alps early in the nineteenth through his influence in official circles that century. (Burana is the Latin adjective relating Orff’s name was to remain on the list of to Beuren, or Benediktbeuern.) The songs, composers eligible for broadcast in Germany; vivid and colourful, were those sung by the official approbation for his music came in goliards – hedonistic students and travelling 1942 when Orff was awarded an RMK prize. monks who celebrated their riotous pursuits Nonetheless, Orff was generally regarded in poetry of a suitably bawdy and profane with suspicion by the fascists and he was nature. The twenty-four ‘cantiones profanae’ considerably relieved when in July 1944 he chosen by Orff from Schmeller’s collection received a reassurance from a Nazi official were translated and paraphrased by Michel that his work had been personally considered Hofmann and Wolfgang Schadewalt, and by Goebbels and deemed to be acceptable. the composer set them to music for three After the Second World War, Orff would suffer vocal soloists, three choirs (including a boys’ from criticisms that he had been complicit chorus) and a large orchestra featuring triple with the regime; in fact, he was of part-Jewish woodwind, two pianos and no fewer than five descent, and had tried to remain persona percussionists. The texts are organised into grata with his fascist masters partly for three principal sections: (I) ‘In Spring’ and ‘On reasons of personal survival. His somewhat the Green’; (II) ‘In the Tavern’; and (III) ‘The tarnished reputation was exacerbated by his Court of Love’ and ‘Blanziflor and Helena’. disingenuous behaviour when questioned Orff framed his cantata with two statements by Allied occupying forces immediately after of a powerfully epigrammatic invocation of the end of the war, when he deliberately Fortune (‘O Fortuna, velut Luna’), as it was this downplayed his involvement with the Nazi text and a striking illustration of the Wheel of Party. Fortune which had first caught his attention The idea for Carmina burana came to Orff when he read Schmeller’s book. in 1935 when he encountered an edition A major influence on Orff’s style was of mediaeval songs (carmina), edited by the music of Igor Stravinsky, with which the poet Johann Schmeller. Schmeller’s Orff closely identified, partly because both handsome book, published in 1847, included composers in the 1920s and 1930s had several hundred texts in various languages, attempted to achieve a ritualistic style drawn from manuscripts discovered in the inspired by Greek tragedy. Orff’s musical historic monastery of Benediktbeuern in language in Carmina burana owes much to 9 CHSA 5067 Booklet.indd 9 21/8/08 16:41:30 Stravinsky’s example in its heavy reliance eccentric portrayal of the doomed swan in on motoric ostinato patterns (ideal for the ‘Olim lacus colueram’ (No. 12). dancing and physical movement of the In spite of its occasionally derivative stylised stage presentation for which the nature, however, the score possesses a score was designed), in certain rhythmic and gloriously infectious vulgarity interspersed harmonic characteristics, and in a fondness with moments of genuine beauty which has for percussive sonorities.