carmina burana

With its shimmering orchestration and primal rhythms, Carl Orff’s “scenic cantata” Carmina burana is already a mainstay in the canon of contemporary music for choir and orchestra. Its lyrics are based on 24 Medieval poems addressing issues as familiar to us today as they were when they were first written in the 13th century — the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of spring’s return, and the pleasures and peri...