Live & Free at the MAC | 2011–2012 Season Carmina Burana Carl Orff Robert Porco, Conductor Rainelle Krause, Soprano Jacob Williams, Tenor John Orduña, Baritone Oratorio Chorus Indiana University Children’s Choir University Orchestra Musical Arts Center Wednesday, April 18, 8:00 pm music.indiana.edu One Thousand Fifteenth Program of the 2011-12 Season _______________________ Indiana University Choral Department presents Carmina Burana by Carl Orff Robert Porco, Conductor Benjamin Geier, Assistant Conductor Piotr Wisniewski, Rehearsal Accompanist Katherine Strand, International Vocal Ensemble, Director Brian Schkeeper, IU Children’s Choir, Chorus Master Juan Hernandez, All-Campus Choir, Director Rainelle Krause, Soprano Jacob Williams, Tenor John Orduña, Baritone Oratorio Chorus University Orchestra _________________ Musical Arts Center Wednesday Evening April Eighteenth Eight O’Clock Carmina Burana (1935-36) Carl Orff (1895-1982) Fortuna imperatrix mundi Fortune, Empress of the World 1 O Fortuna – Chorus O Fortune 2 Fortune plango vulnera – Chorus I lament the wounds Fortune deals I – Primo vere In Spring 3 Veris leta facies – Small Chorus The joyous face of Spring 4 Omnia sol temperat – Baritone All things are tempered by the Sun 5 Ecce gratum – Chorus Behold the welcome Uf dem Anger In the Meadow 6 Tanz – Orchestra Dance 7 Floret silva – Chorus The forest flowers 8 Chramer, gip die varwe mir – Chorus Monger, give me colored paint 9 a) Reie – Orchestra Round dance 9 b) Swaz hie gat umbe – Chorus They who here go dancing around 9 c) Chume, chum, geselle min – Small Chorus Come, come, my dear companion 9 d) Swaz hie gat umbe (reprise) – Chorus They who here go dancing around 10 Were diu werlt alle min – Chorus If the whole world were but mine II – In taberna In the Tavern 11 Estuans interius – Baritone Seething inside 12 Olim lacus colueram – Tenor and Chorus Once I swam in lakes 13 Ego sum abbas – Baritone and Male Chorus I am the abbot of Cockaigne 14 In taberna quando sumus – Male Chorus When we are in the tavern III – Cour d’amours Court of Love 15 Amor volat undique – Soprano and Children’s Chorus Love flies everywhere 16 Dies, nox et omnia – Baritone Day, night and everything 17 Stetit puella – Soprano There stood a girl 18 Circa mea pectora – Baritone and Chorus In my breast 19 Si puer cum puellula – Baritone and Male Chorus If a boy with a girl 20 Veni, veni, venias – Chorus Come, come, pray come 21 In trutina – Soprano On the scales 22 Tempus est iocundum – Soprano, Baritone and Children’s Chorus Time to jest 23 Dulcissime – Soprano Sweetest boy Blanziflor et Helena Blancheflour and Helen 24 Ave formosissima – Chorus Hail to the most lovely Fortuna imperatrix mundi Fortune, Empress of the World 25 O Fortuna (reprise) – Chorus O Fortune Program Notes The monumental cantata Carmina Burana, is composer Carl Orff’s greatest success and certainly one of the most recognizable pieces of 20th-century music. Its perennial performances and use in countless movies, commercials, and popular songs is testimony to its enduring evocative character. The work premiered in Frankfurt on June 8, 1937, but is based on a selection of 24 12th-century poems from the Goliardic manuscript referred to as Carmina Burana. Featuring arresting yet elemental musical gestures, Orff’s epic setting is a re-imagining of medieval sensibility through the 20th-century stage and orchestra. Orff (1895-1982) was largely self taught as a composer and, as a result, his works are quite independent from the music of his contemporaries; however, with an emphasis on rhythmic repetition, we can hear a Stravinskian influence on this particular composition. What distinguishes Carmina Burana among other 20th-century works is dance-like rhythms, memorable diatonic melodies, and use of strophic form; all of which make it instantly engaging to audiences. Orff was as much a music educator as he was a composer, and his innovative and experimental approach to music pedagogy manifested itself in the elemental aspects of his own music. In 1923, he met the dancer and choreographer Dorothee Günther, who, sympathetic to Orff’s ideas about music, shared his enthusiasm for the symbiotic relationship between music and dance. This shared philosophy led them to open the Güntherschule, which offered courses in music and dance, using a groundbreaking pedagogical approach that included improvisation and multidisciplinary experimentation. This approach towards the arts and arts education can be seen to permeate Orff’s own compositions. The repetitive rhythmic gestures and regular rhymed phrases reflect Orff’s ideas of elemental music: music that develops naturally, is deeply connected to the intrinsic structure of words, and can be easily learned. Of course, Carmina Burana also exhibits sophisticated orchestration and a scholarly interpretation of texts; however, the elemental aesthetics articulated in this work are distinct marks of Orff as an educator and a composer and contribute much to why Carmina Burana has proven so enduring. Each movement in this work has a distinct character and is a careful consideration of the text presented as a tableau. Carmina Burana was originally conceived as a stage work, including scenery, dance, and mime, following the philosophy of Gesamtkunstwerke, or “total art,” where multiple elements of art are unified via theater. Although lacking a single dramatic plot, Carmina Burana is a collection of scenes expressing the medieval sentiment of acceptance of Fortune’s will. The figure of Fortune is key to understanding the medieval world view, and a depiction of the goddess Fortune and her wheel decorated the original 12th-century Carmina Burana manuscript. Fortune’s wheel is found throughout medieval art, music, and literature, and was meant to convey the changeable nature of man’s fate, which was at the mercy of Fortune’s spinning wheel. The ubiquitous image is usually shown with the female figure of Fortune and a four-spoked wheel. Each point of the wheel is shown with a man and a corresponding phrase; “I reign,” “I reigned,” “I have no reign,” and “I will reign again.” O Fortuna, the most anguished and most famous movement of the work, is Orff’s musical depiction of this idea of man’s powerlessness against fate. We can hear the relentless spinning of Fortune’s wheel in the ostinato figuration of the bassoons. The full chorus, in repetitive verse sounding like an incantation, bemoans capricious fate. The orchestration slowly thickens throughout the subsequent verses, as do the harmonies in the chorus, until the last line is proclaimed in complete drama and fanfare: “So at this hour, pluck the vibrating strings; because fate brings down even the strong; everyone weep with me.” What follows in the next hour, however, is not weeping at all but rather a Bacchic defiance of fate through ribald celebration of spring, humor, and the joys of love. Orff organized his 25 selections from Carmina Burana by grouping the texts by subject and theme into three sections: I. Primo Vere, “Springtime,” II. In Taberna, “In the tavern,” and III. Cour d’amour, “Courtly Love.” These sections, which make up the body of the work, are framed by the movement O Fortuna, which opens and concludes the work. The interior movements which comprise the three aforementioned sections, reflect the more raucous, joyous (and sometimes bawdy), side of Goliardic poetry. The name Goliard was loosely applied to wandering poets and composers of the 12th and 13th centuries. As a result of the opening of several universities, there arose during this time a class of educated young men who, perhaps because of disillusionment with clerical life, left the cathedrals and universities to set out on foot and live off of their wits. Their knowledge of reading and music equipped them well as entertainers. Goliards would often find themselves in courts, taverns, and at town celebrations making their living by peddling songs and poetry. A good portion of Goliardic poetry is also characterized as satirical. The Carmina Burana manuscript includes a parody mass dedicated to the god of gamblers. This sarcastic humor is not lost on Orff, who sets the satirical text “Ego sum abbas Cucaniensis” as a drunken imitation of Gregorian chant, with the baritone soloist declaring himself an abbot whose congregation is made up of drinkers and gamblers. For the more courtly medieval audience, Goliardic poetry often turned towards themes of romance. The third section of Carmina Burana contains love poems. While some of the selections can be quite lascivious, others convey the pain and longing characteristic of medieval courtly love. Passion heightens steadily during the course of this section and finally culminates in the movement “Tempus est iucondum,” in which Orff utilizes a formidable super ensemble—a children’s choir along with the full choir and orchestra. The joy of this movement is distilled and clarified in the a capella soprano solo, “Dulcissime,” in which the soprano sings, “My sweetest love, I give myself to you.” Joy and grandeur reach their climax in the penultimate movement of the entire work, “Ave Formosissima,” which parodies the kind of language that would have been used in poetry praising the Virgin Mary. The first six lines of the text could easily refer to Mary: “Glorious Virgin,” “Light of the World,” and “Rose of the World,” but once the choir reaches the final two lines of the poem, we learn that the woman being praised is not Mary but rather three women; the intriguing figures Blanzifor (a medieval heroine), Helena, and the goddess Venus. However, Orff does not allow us to rest in exaltation of the worldly beauty that these three figures represent but reminds us that even when we are at our height, Fortune’s wheel is ever turning—and in a defiant upset of the final chorus of praise, Orff plunges us back to the bottom of Fortune’s wheel with the crushing reprisal of O Fortuna.