| Music Encyclopedia: Carmina burana |
Title given by J.A. Schmeller to his edition (1847) of a German MS of the early 13th century containing songs, some with music in neumatic notation. The MS was found at Benediktbeuren in 1803 but may have originated at Seckau; it is now at the Bavarian State Library, Munich. Carl Orff used the poems (but not the music) in his scenic cantata (1937, Frankfurt), the first part of his Trionfi trilogy.
| Dictionary of Dance: Carmina Burana |
Carl Orff's famous musical setting of bawdy medieval songs has inspired many choreographers. The first production was 8 June 1937 in Frankfurt with choreography by Inge Härtling. It was followed by stagings from Lizzie Maudrik (Berlin State Opera, 1941), Hanka (La Scala, Milan, 1942-3), Wigman (Leipzig, 1943), H. Rosen (Bavarian State Opera, Munich, 1959), Butler (New York City Opera, 1959, revived Netherlands Dance Theatre, 1962, Pennsylvania Ballet, 1966, Alvin Ailey, 1973), Nault (Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, 1967), Darrell (Berlin Opera Ballet, 1968), and Bintley (Birmingham Royal Ballet, 1995).
| German Literature Companion: Carmina Burana |
Carmina Burana, a collection of medieval Latin songs, including some songs in German and mixed Latin and German, contained in a 13th-c, MS. discovered at the Abbey of Benediktbeuren in Bavaria, whence its title. The songs range from naïve piety to drunken ribaldry and are the work of strolling singers and clerics of the preceding two centuries. They were published in 1847. Some have been made the basis of 19th-c. student songs. Carl Orff used a selection as the basic text for his ‘scenic cantata’ Carmina Burana (1937).
| Classical Work: Carmina Burana |
| Wikipedia: Carmina Burana |
Carmina Burana (pronounced /ˈkɑrmɨnə bʊˈrɑːnə/), Latin for "Songs from Beuern" (short for: Benediktbeuern), is the name given to a manuscript of 254[1] poems and dramatic texts from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces were written almost entirely in Medieval Latin; a few in Middle High German, and some with traces of Old French or Provençal. Many are macaronic, a mixture of Latin and German or French vernacular.
They were written by students and clergy when the Latin idiom was the lingua franca across Italy and western Europe for travelling scholars, universities and theologians. Most of the poems and songs appear to be the work of Goliards, clergy (mostly students) who set up and satirized the Church. The collection preserves the works of a number of poets, including Peter of Blois, Walter of Châtillon and the anonymous one, referred to as the Archpoet.
The collection was found in 1803 in the Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuern, Bavaria, and is now housed in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. Along with the Carmina Cantabrigiensia, the Carmina Burana is the most important collection of Goliard and vagabond songs.
The manuscripts reflect an 'international' European movement, with songs originating from Occitania, France, England, Scotland, Aragon, Castille and the Holy Roman Empire. [2].
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The Carmina Burana (abbreviated CB) is a manuscript scribed in 1230 by two different writers in an early gothic minuscule on 119 sheets of parchment. In the 14th century, a folio of free pages, cut of a slightly different size, was attached at the end of the text.[3] The handwritten pages were bound into a small folder, called the Codex Buranus, in the Late Middle Ages.[4] However, in the process of binding, the text was placed partially out of order, and some pages were most likely lost as well. The manuscript contains eight miniatures (a term for drawings in illuminated manuscripts): the wheel of fortune (which actually is an illustration from the songs CB 14-18, but was placed by the book binder as the cover), an imaginative forest, a pair of lovers, scenes from the story of Dido and Aeneas, a scene of drinking beer, and three scenes of playing games – dice, ludus duodecim scriptorum, and chess.[5]
Older research took it to be the case that the manuscript was written where it was found in Benediktbeuern.[6] Today, however, there is disagreement in the community of Carmina Burana scholars over the birthplace of the manuscript. What is agreed upon is that, because of the dialect of the Middle High German phrases in the text, the manuscript must be from the region of central Europe that speaks the Bavarian dialect of German, which includes parts of southern Germany, western Austria, and northern Italy, and, because of the Italian peculiarities of the text, it must be from the southern region thereof. The two possible locations of its origin are either the bishop's seat of Seckau in Steiermark, or Kloster Neustift near Brixen in South Tirol.
In support of the first theory: a bishop Heinrich, who was provost there from 1232 to 1243, was mentioned as provost of Maria Saal in Kärnten in CB 6* of the added folio (* denotes the song is in the added folio) and it is possible that he funded the creation of the Carmina Burana; the marchiones (people from Steiermark) were mentioned in CB 219,3 before the Bavarians, Sachsens or Austrians, presumably indicating that Steiermark was the closest location to the writers; also most of the hymns were dedicated to Saint Katharina von Alexandrien (CB 12* and 19* – 22*), who was venerated in Seckau.[7]
The other hypothesis claims that Kloster Neustift near Brixen in South Tirol is the birthplace of the Carmina Burana. In support of this argument, the text's open mindedness is characteristic of the reform-minded Augustine Canons Regular of the time, as is the spoken quality of the writing. Also, Brixen is mentioned in CB 95, and the beginning to a story unique to Tirol called the Eckenlied about the mythic hero Dietrich von Bern appears in CB 203a.[8]
Less clear is how the Carmina Burana traveled to Benediktbeuren.[9] The Germanist Fritz Peter Knapp suggested that, if the manuscript were written in Neustift, it could have traveled in 1350 by way of the Wittelsbacher family, who were Vögte of both Tirol and Bavaria.[10]
Generally, the works contained in the Carmina Burana can be arranged into four groups according to theme:[11]
This outline, however, has many exceptions. CB 122-134, which are categorized as love songs, actually are not: they contain a song for mourning the dead, a satire, and two educational stories about the names of animals. There also likely was another group of spiritual poems included in the Carmina Burana, but they have since been lost.[12] The attached folio contains a mix of 21 generally spiritual songs: a prose-prayer to Saint Erasmus and four more spiritual plays, some of which have only survived as fragments. These larger thematic groups can also be further subdivided, for example, the end of the world (CB 24-31), songs about the crusades (CB 46-52) or reworkings of writings from antiquity (CB 97-102).
Other frequently recurring themes include: critiques on simony and greed in the church, that, with the advent of the monetary economy in the 12th cenutry, rapidly became an important issue (CB 1-11, 39, 41-45); lamentations in the form of the planctus, for example about the ebb and flow of human fate (CB 14-18) or about death (CB 122-131); the hymnic celebration of the return of spring (CB 132, 135, 137, 138, 161 and others); pastourelles about the the rape/seduction of shepherdesses by knights, students/clergymen (CB 79, 90, 157-158); and the description of love as military service (CB 60, 62, and 166), a topos known from Ovid's elegiac love poems. Ovid and especially his erotic elegies were reproduced, imitated and exaggerated in the Carmina Burana.[13] In other words, for those unfamiliar with Ovid's work, depictions of sexual intercourse in the manuscript are frank and even sometimes agressive. CB 76, for example, makes use of the lyrical I to describe a ten hour love act with the goddess of love herself, Venus (ternens eam lectulo / fere decem horis). Homosexuality, which was not an uncommon theme for middle age poetry following antique styles, is completely missing from the Carmina Burana.[14]
The Carmina Burana contains numerous poetic descriptions of a raucous medieval paradise (CB 195-207, 211, 217, 219), for which the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, known for his advocation of the blissful life, is even taken as an authority on the subject (CB 211). CB 219 describes, for example, an ordo vagorum (vagrant order) to which people from every land and clerics of all rankings were invited -- even presbyter cum sua matrona, or "priests and their wives" (humorous because Catholic priests must swear an oath of celibacy). In this parody world, the rules of priesthood include sleeping in, eating heavy food and drinking rich wine, and regularly playing dice games. These rules were described in such detail that older research on the Carmina Burana took these descriptions for their word and assumed there actually existed such a lazy order of priests.[15] In fact, though, this outspoken revery of living delights and freedom from moral obligations shows "an attitude towards life and the world that stands in stark contrast to the firmly established expectations (German, Ordnung) of life in the Middle Ages."[16] The literary researcher Christine Kasper considers this description of a bawdy paradise as part of the early history of the European story of the land of Cockaigne: in CB 222 the abbas Cucaniensis, or Abbot of Cockaigne, is said to have presided over a group of dice players.[17]
Between 1935 and 1936, German composer Carl Orff set 24 of the poems to new music, also called Carmina Burana. The most famous movement is "Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi (O Fortuna)" (Fortuna meaning Fortune in Latin, as well as a Roman goddess). Orff's composition has been performed by countless ensembles (see Carl Orff's O Fortuna in popular culture).
Other musical settings include:
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